Happy to see other people talk about Stoneshard. The injury/pain system is very unforgiving, but it forces players to prepare beforehand and interact with the games different systems, which I like.
@@AndrewChambersDesign true, but at least when they do update the game it's always quality work. And they're based in Ukraine/Russia, which is possibly the worst possible combination of countries a dev team could be made of right now so I don't really blame them
The injury system makes fights go differently and allows some strategy even in a turn based game. For instance if you cripple someone's arm, they will have accuracy and fumble penalties- meaning if you cripple a high damage enemy you can then more safely engage them in melee- but if you cripple the leg, you're better off using crowd control skills on them. This is just one example of how the system makes fights fun.
I've seen an instance in recent game Stalker 2, where some players were complaining about mutants being hard to kill and don't give any loot. They were stating this as an oversight in design, while completely missing the point of this desicion. It was intended to funnel players in to certain mindset and playstyle that is not involving "farming" everything on sight like it's an MMORPG or something. Resources and ammo are limited, you are not supposed to search a fight every time you see something.
This is a phenomenal example of behavior training. Players have been trained to expect gear when they kill, as opposed to understanding that the enemies serve a different role. Great point.
One of your best videos to date. Thank you! I think it was Sid who said there are 4 types of decisions: risk vs reward ("useful but at what cost"), temporal ("useful now useless later"), situational ("useful if XYZ"), and expressive ("i don't care if its useful i LIKE it"). The Barony example you highlighted perhaps touches on all four.
Its not over polishing, it is hand holding. But new gamers have gotten so used to this hand holding (under the guise of respecting player's time) that they down vote any game where they have to think or experience an adventure. Many don't play games for the grand adventure, but rather it's about the numbers increasing in the game.
As an RPG lover I've been thinking this for ages. There's something so charming and beautiful about the absolute jank of older and indie titles that demands more of your mind to decipher, which as you mentioned is a barrier of entry to people who wouldn't be interested in the game anyways, but is capable of making the game more familiar and endear itself to players who ARE its target audience. Everything in this video is so eloquently and beautifully articulated to properly sing the praises of rpg jank.
One of my greatest worries with Kenshi 2 is that it will be either much more polished, or will have "intentional jank". But yes, the current Kenshi is a masterpiece. Elin/Elona is similar in this regard.
Drova is a gothiclike that was really hyped up in that community. There is a reason why people in germany and eastern europe are still making total conversion mods for a 20 year old game. Many old school players are looking for immersive experiences.
Love the video! Would appreciate text on screen in the corner to indicate the name of the game that's currently on screen, maybe just for the first time that game appears on the screen if that's too disruptive? I see many interesting looking games and unsure how to find out their names!
The Witcher 2 has a Dark Mode difficulty that allows you to craft super equipment for each act of the game, but at great expense, to counterbalance the difficulty. If you wear the incomplete armor set, your health will constantly drain, but you also drain health from enemies with each strike. You can do quite well fighting like that, with a black haze around the edges of your screen. I beat the game that way.
The problem I see with bigger companies simplifying their games is that it take away one of the most satsfying aspects in gaming, which is awarding your learning process. Most good games start hard and gets easier to the point of being trivialised once you learn how to play it. Stoneshard is a good example, the game seems almost impossible at first, but eventually you learn your way around and suddenly it doesn't seem so bad. For me the perfect example of this sort of progression through learning is Terraria. First time I played most bosses seemed almost impossible, and them you learn how to fight them and suddenly they are easy! And them they released expert mod and restared that process all over again, and eventually master mode. Companies are afraid to alienate larger audiences, but for me (big, triple a) games are getting worse every year.
I also like to think of leaving in the rough edges as “trust your player”. As you point out, AAA often has a bad habit of not giving players room to think, and instead hand-holds them throughout the entire experience. Let players work things out! It’s immensely more satisfying and creates more memorable moments.
One thing that I want to note is that there are many more games nowadays, and prices have been very deflated compared to purchasing power. Games used to cost a higher proportion of your salary. There were no free games either like league of legends or fortnite. Where I'm getting at is that it was more normal to stick with a game than to jump to the next one. My understanding is that it is important for companies that players stick with their games. Rough edges were not a problem for the companies because the players were less likely to switch to another game (since there were less games, and they were more expensive).
Been Playin Stoneshard since the first release of early access hell a long journey,they tend to do weirdly funny thing like "we gonna drop this new skill that supposed to be hard to utilize" but people managed to find a way to make it the strongest build that ever existed, like the old Battle Trance Staff and the old Berseker Tradition that tied to being naked to get pretty big buffs.they indeed does smooth things here and there, but the true nature of this game was the easily exploited things the community discovered,and it's one of the reason Stoneshard will only became a better game going up on releases, yes there are tons of small slightly annoying bugs but thankfully the devs was responsive,this game needs more recognition. Also the lingering feeling of Magic is stronger than us is really profound i this game.
Could you elaborate a bit more what makes being able to sleep in an enemy's bed you just killed a rough edge, please (at 24:42)? I don't really get why it'd be considered one, seems more like it'd just make sense in general that if there's a bed and sleeping is a feature, that players should be able to sleep in them. Also a small suggestion, it would be nice to display the game's title when showing gameplay footage (e.g. the section at 3:45). Thanks for the videos, appreciate them!
Sleeping also interacts with one of Stoneshard's more controversial design choices, and that's how you save the game - you have to sleep somewhere or close the game. So, you're not just getting the full heal, you're also getting a save spot. This means the player is going to utilize one of the beds in the camp to sleep basically 100% of the time. Which on top of being extremely powerful, is also quite macabre. And I think that might be the point he's making? This mechanic of POI that are often small camps with some enemies to fight ends up with sleeping there afterwards being a baked in part of the process, and a AAA game would likely have the 'and then sleep in the camp' step removed. Instead, it kinda works for Stoneshard because of how it paints your character's morals (well, lack of) along with the usefulness of it in an otherwise punishing game.
My favorite recent example of this is in Workers & Resources realism mode. Most city builders allow you to just tear down what you built. You get anywhere from 100% to 0% of the cost refunded, and often it is 50%. So what about not only refunding 0% but, just as in real life, having to get demolition charges, take the structure down, collect all of the rubble and take it to various specialty dumps? This is more than a rough edge. The impact to the game experience is that planning now becomes not just important, but critical. So if you like planning, you don't want to make it easy to not-plan. I see it as a design flaw to allow easily making changes in a city builder. If it doesn't have planning then what is the point?
I'm literally playing stoneshard while watching this video. Love it, it's so unforgiving, and at times, very unlucky. But nothing is more thrilling than surviving with 1hp on permadeath. A shame it's gotten so many bad reviews because they've failed to hit release dates on their roadmap. It's made by Ukranians and Russians so it's no surprise they've had delays lol
This is a great video! I would love to see you cover Path of Exile´s design decisions in depth since it has been heralding a lot more modern designs for isometric arpgs and the reason for its friction in a lot of its systems from both path of exile 1 and path of exile 2
problem with rough edges is that they demand a lot from the player. that might be ok and even commonplace in days past where kids got a game or two throughout the year for birthdays and holidays. but we're waaaaaaay past that kind of market. we are in an era of GLUT. our steam back catalog runs into the thousands... EASILY. nvm the entire back catalog of emulation roms. most games will not be in a position to demand that much from players. sure, players will accede to something like elden ring. but that is a unique market phenom that indies dare not try to replicate. sad thing is that it's true - the more you put into something, the more you get out of it. but because of the nature of our current market, this may necessarily be a rare thing that happens only for the few games that have the clout to flex its muscles.
You've hit on arguably the main pain point of modern game design in big productions: game design is too focused on UX these days. While I do understand the validity of data driven design from a business perspective, I do feel that it alienates core audiences, resulting in this feel of blandness you describe. I feel like there has been somewhat of an unspoken movement in modern game design to put some friction back in via accessibility features. It is an interesting way to both improve usability, and bring back the difficulty settings, and would love to see more game designers lean in that direction. An example of the above is playing Metal Gear Solid V without the x-ray feature; You can still mark soldiers with your binoculars, but now you need to look at the map to see where they are. The game even has a somewhat of an hidden map visualization mode to accommodate for this play style. The extra friction from no x-ray really added to the fantasy of being a solo operative infiltrating an enemy outpost, putting more focus on the planning and scouting rather than on players reaction time. At the same time I also think that adding extra friction via accessibility settings does add to QA, since you need to make sure that the game hits the intended design no matter which accessibility settings have been selected. A less successful example of the above is the ability to disable objective markers in Red Dead Redemption 2. While removing markers does add to the fantasy of the game, it results in a poor user experience since it feels like none of the missions were designed from the ground up with the expectations of mission markers being enabled. Strangely enough the decision Rockstar made there is to accept that the player is focused on the minimal at all times, and work around that by adding a cinematic auto horse gallop camera.
I suggest you try, if you haven't already, 7 Days to Die with the Afterlife mod. I've played nearly all of the games you mentioned and many more and way that difficulty is managed in ways to increase fun without becoming tedious (the downside to your notion here) is done at the highest level I have experienced. Very immersive when there is real exploration, a story you are entirely creating on your own, and a perfect balance creating challenge but no tedium. Valheim comes close here, but it can get tedious at times.
Textbook game design becomes too mundane and familiar to gamers. There are so many gamers now that the focus should always be on them, rather than players completely new to gaming
Made me think of my favorite game: Space Station 13. It's _very_ rough around the edges, not streamlined at all and unapologetically not for everyone, but it's also an experience unlike any other.
Stoneshard. The pain system, body part damage system, make battle much realistic alot. If there is only one health bar with HP potion, battle is much boring because just head to head stat check game but now, you have to be caution, plan and you have to check what weapon/skill your enemies have you cant just go all in the fight all the enemies you see ,because your max HP reduce after being hit, you cant heal immediately, you have to divided them into small group, ambush them at corner if there is tank with archer at backline you should rush behind some obstacle before fighting the tank ( so the obstacle may block the arrow) arrow damage is not very high compare with 2H weapon but the limb damage caused by arrow can cause big trouble during the fight with their melee tank for example, I wont head to head fighting a 2H axe holder 2H axe holder have super high chance to cause bleeding and bleeding damage is a super easy to "miss"calculation during the heat of battle
theres this feature on certain mobile game (fk i forgot what it is) its basically roguelite autobattler but you grew your hero passive, but they have limited number of slot and a passive could take more than one slot, to increase the slot you have to get negative passive, they give extra slot in exchange for their negative ability, some are fatal, some can be get aroundit it. is this also "rough edge"? or just a feature
I have developed such a distatest for hand-holding in games these days, when the tutorial already forces you or basically locks you in and or the game doesn't let me think on my own for a second. Recently I played Stalker 2 and I had so much joy to explore the world on my own, no numbers go big, or meaningless level or stats. you get good gear to put it on, no matter how you managed to get your fingers on it. What makes it even worse IMHO is when a game does not handhold, you have some 'game journalist' who needs 4h to find the door to the next level and gives it a 4/10 for bad design. There are also cases of games that got patched to death because of the lack of focusing on a target audience, if you try to make a game for everyone, at the end you have nobody who is interested.
I'm curious what you think of the item upgrade system in Two Worlds. Adding identical items(same sword visual) with different stats together to combine them felt very satisfying in that game. But I have rarely seen a similar system in games since. Would love to hear you talk about different loot and upgrade systems like Barony's.
This is a great video. Subscribed! I hate floating marker design, which feels like visual pollution. Also, I dislike most types of "input assist", which are basically outsourcing gameplay (e.g. lock-on). Mount & Blade and even the Elder Scrolls are good positive examples imo.
I also love the tradeoff design where you gain something at the expense of something and can often bypass issues with synergy. This was used on some KCD's perks (some call that "sidegrades"). It is a shame that it seems they will lean more towards "upgrades" on the sequel.
This was a treat to listen to. Thank you! I have been building out concepts for a few games and playing with changing up the standard rpg stats and systems, so your knowledge and perspectives on these diamonds in the rough was really nice to have this morning. Cheers!
When your budget is in the tens--if not hundreds--of millions of dollars, you want to expand the accessibility of the game to the maximum possible audience, which means dumbing down the puzzles, quests, mechanics, UI, everything, to a lowest common denominator.
Very interesting topic here! Modern titles certainly like to overdo "smoothing out" the experience, to the point at wich I am being treated like an infant.
stoneshard, superhard, I agreed. I bought stoneshard at Feb/2020, unable to get through the game even I put 20 hour in it. Too brutal, grind hard but low efficient, punishing by minor mistake after latest update - RtR, there are ton of video on youtube, and player online on STEAM shoot up to 8k (which usually ~3xx ) I open the game again afer left it there for 4 years OMG, addictive! still punishing, brutal, but reasonable a lot I love the feel that I am human, not hero, I am fragile, The world is brutal, unforgiving, but I can handle with wisdom, caution and planning. I am looking forwards they let us create own character but the speed of updating, is kind of a concern lol
In fairness, with regards to your WoW example of Mankirk's Wife, you're mostly right that these kinds of quests have been polished down to a much smoother edge, though you overlooked that there are also far more secret quests, unlocks, treasure hunts, and hidden collectables in the game than ever before; many more than ever existed in vanilla, which has led to the formation of massive communities working to unravel them. The big difference is that these conversations don't happen in game anymore, so much as on websites comment sections and Discords; there's certainly a cost to that, reducing the sense of in-game cooperation and community, though it's hard to blame Blizzard for that societal trend - the game has become far too big for Barrens chat. While I agree that friction is an important and often underappreciated element of design, I also tend to believe that the decision to streamline the leveling/campaign process and move those exploration/discovery elements to more optional areas of the game was the right decision for the majority of players. The friction still exists, just without forcing everyone into it from the earliest stages of the game.
Also in fairness, I beat up on WoW alot but it comes from a place of love not just for the game but also the team. It defines a massive part of my lifes journey. I should probably do a “everything i fucking love about wow video” one of these days
@@AndrewChambersDesign That's ok; I didn't take it as beating up on WoW, and it did a great job of expressing your point. It just leads into a deeper conversation on the evolving player trends and online resources which prompted those changes... though of course that's a big tangent that wasn't the topic of this particular video!
Thanks for the video! COVER: Realms of Arcania: Blade of Destiny AND Star Trail!!! [SPOILER: The Series does contain coursed items ;-)] I don't think it's the designers' fault alone. The market eventually demanded easier games because players didn't want to be stuck with "Nintendo difficulty" all the time. Therefore I stick to the oldies like the Infinity Engine Games, Realms of Arcania, Pathfinder or Ultima.
If you smooth out a game you kinda kill the utilitiarian features of the game...and also that feeling that you as a player broke and abuse the gamemechanics a little bit.
The thing is rpg items are not supposed to be perfect, they have benefits and 1 or 2 drawbacks therefore no optimized game. Exactly as you described the obscure quest, not perfect. Life is not polished rpg games used to magnify this, diablo was great because of what u described
Decent discussion, but 1:55 is a bad and false dichotomy. There is a huge design space between where "intentional rough edge" can fall in. Lost in Battle square falls into the needlessly frustrating side of the that design space, where smarter design would have provided similar if not more engagement _and_ a whole space of interesting follow-ups. Similarly, the "can your mom play it" is a discussion much more about accessibility and much less so about depth and complexity of games. Lastly, as much as I love and play indy games, many many of them fall into the trap of building systems for system's sake and not towards an actual design goal.
I'm not convinced. As humans, we remember and tell stories about hardships (even in games), but that doesn't make the rough edges a virtue. People forgive the warts if the underlying game is good enough to look past them, but it doesn't mean the warts are why they are enjoying the game. This sort of thinking is used as an excuse to justify lazy design all the time. It would be as if car manufacturers noticed that people have fond memories of their first (piece-of-junk) cars and set out to design cars to be a little broken down right off the assembly line.
Enemies not respawning is, and always will be bad game design. It is design that will lead to you having a dead world rather than something that's fun to explore.
Different perspective : enemies constantly respawning means your character has zero effect on the world, so why even bother killing monsters and bandits, just run past them or stop playing. Of course, it depends on how much backtracking and combat the game expects, and the respawn rate can be reasonable/realistic instead of all-or-nothing.
@armelior4610 unless your game revolves around political and city-state reform, you killing bandits does not solve the problem that led to bandits existing. It is perfectly reasonable for bandits and wolves and other things to respond consistently through gameplay as it is representative of a larger world and a longer time passes within the game compared to the real world. You killing a few wolves and then no wolves ever showing back up is you having no impact on the world because time is literally not moving forward.
Dont forget to like/subscribe/bell me if you want more of this style, and if you'd like to support me, I like coffee: Ko-fi.com/andrewchambersdesign
Happy to see other people talk about Stoneshard. The injury/pain system is very unforgiving, but it forces players to prepare beforehand and interact with the games different systems, which I like.
I just wish they would release updates more often :(
@@AndrewChambersDesign true, but at least when they do update the game it's always quality work. And they're based in Ukraine/Russia, which is possibly the worst possible combination of countries a dev team could be made of right now so I don't really blame them
Oh 💯, no blame, just like, i want more!!! Its amazing what they are accomplishing.
@@AndrewChambersDesignrel
The injury system makes fights go differently and allows some strategy even in a turn based game. For instance if you cripple someone's arm, they will have accuracy and fumble penalties- meaning if you cripple a high damage enemy you can then more safely engage them in melee- but if you cripple the leg, you're better off using crowd control skills on them. This is just one example of how the system makes fights fun.
not only do we optimise the fun out of games as players, designers are guilty of this too.
I've seen an instance in recent game Stalker 2, where some players were complaining about mutants being hard to kill and don't give any loot. They were stating this as an oversight in design, while completely missing the point of this desicion. It was intended to funnel players in to certain mindset and playstyle that is not involving "farming" everything on sight like it's an MMORPG or something. Resources and ammo are limited, you are not supposed to search a fight every time you see something.
This is a phenomenal example of behavior training. Players have been trained to expect gear when they kill, as opposed to understanding that the enemies serve a different role.
Great point.
One of your best videos to date. Thank you!
I think it was Sid who said there are 4 types of decisions: risk vs reward ("useful but at what cost"), temporal ("useful now useless later"), situational ("useful if XYZ"), and expressive ("i don't care if its useful i LIKE it"). The Barony example you highlighted perhaps touches on all four.
Thanks so much, that means alot.
Great stuff.
Would you, by any chance, have a talk or interview or something, where Sid talks about this in more depth?
As a result, the brains of the modern player have been smoothed out.
Those games share a thing. They are not meant to be played by everybody
Its not over polishing, it is hand holding. But new gamers have gotten so used to this hand holding (under the guise of respecting player's time) that they down vote any game where they have to think or experience an adventure. Many don't play games for the grand adventure, but rather it's about the numbers increasing in the game.
You might have a point there. Factorio is highly polished but doesn't feel bland to me.
As an RPG lover I've been thinking this for ages. There's something so charming and beautiful about the absolute jank of older and indie titles that demands more of your mind to decipher, which as you mentioned is a barrier of entry to people who wouldn't be interested in the game anyways, but is capable of making the game more familiar and endear itself to players who ARE its target audience.
Everything in this video is so eloquently and beautifully articulated to properly sing the praises of rpg jank.
You need to try Kenshi.
It's so full of rough edges it mught as well be a sea urchin.
And it's one of the best games ever made.
This comment not only accurately defines Kenshi, but it also made me chuckle aloud in agreement. You have made my day. Thank you.
Facts. Kenshi one of the greatest games ever, even with it's lumps.
I love kenshi and it has some amazing mods.
One of my greatest worries with Kenshi 2 is that it will be either much more polished, or will have "intentional jank". But yes, the current Kenshi is a masterpiece. Elin/Elona is similar in this regard.
Drova is a gothiclike that was really hyped up in that community. There is a reason why people in germany and eastern europe are still making total conversion mods for a 20 year old game. Many old school players are looking for immersive experiences.
Love the video! Would appreciate text on screen in the corner to indicate the name of the game that's currently on screen, maybe just for the first time that game appears on the screen if that's too disruptive? I see many interesting looking games and unsure how to find out their names!
Will try to add that for the next one!
The Witcher 2 has a Dark Mode difficulty that allows you to craft super equipment for each act of the game, but at great expense, to counterbalance the difficulty. If you wear the incomplete armor set, your health will constantly drain, but you also drain health from enemies with each strike. You can do quite well fighting like that, with a black haze around the edges of your screen. I beat the game that way.
The problem I see with bigger companies simplifying their games is that it take away one of the most satsfying aspects in gaming, which is awarding your learning process. Most good games start hard and gets easier to the point of being trivialised once you learn how to play it. Stoneshard is a good example, the game seems almost impossible at first, but eventually you learn your way around and suddenly it doesn't seem so bad. For me the perfect example of this sort of progression through learning is Terraria. First time I played most bosses seemed almost impossible, and them you learn how to fight them and suddenly they are easy! And them they released expert mod and restared that process all over again, and eventually master mode. Companies are afraid to alienate larger audiences, but for me (big, triple a) games are getting worse every year.
Souls games speak to this too.
I also like to think of leaving in the rough edges as “trust your player”. As you point out, AAA often has a bad habit of not giving players room to think, and instead hand-holds them throughout the entire experience.
Let players work things out! It’s immensely more satisfying and creates more memorable moments.
One thing that I want to note is that there are many more games nowadays, and prices have been very deflated compared to purchasing power. Games used to cost a higher proportion of your salary. There were no free games either like league of legends or fortnite. Where I'm getting at is that it was more normal to stick with a game than to jump to the next one.
My understanding is that it is important for companies that players stick with their games.
Rough edges were not a problem for the companies because the players were less likely to switch to another game (since there were less games, and they were more expensive).
Been Playin Stoneshard since the first release of early access hell a long journey,they tend to do weirdly funny thing like "we gonna drop this new skill that supposed to be hard to utilize" but people managed to find a way to make it the strongest build that ever existed, like the old Battle Trance Staff and the old Berseker Tradition that tied to being naked to get pretty big buffs.they indeed does smooth things here and there, but the true nature of this game was the easily exploited things the community discovered,and it's one of the reason Stoneshard will only became a better game going up on releases, yes there are tons of small slightly annoying bugs but thankfully the devs was responsive,this game needs more recognition.
Also the lingering feeling of Magic is stronger than us is really profound i this game.
Could you elaborate a bit more what makes being able to sleep in an enemy's bed you just killed a rough edge, please (at 24:42)? I don't really get why it'd be considered one, seems more like it'd just make sense in general that if there's a bed and sleeping is a feature, that players should be able to sleep in them.
Also a small suggestion, it would be nice to display the game's title when showing gameplay footage (e.g. the section at 3:45).
Thanks for the videos, appreciate them!
I am 99% sure he meant POI’s being unknown dangers that could be a troll or bandit with zero regard to player level.
Sleeping also interacts with one of Stoneshard's more controversial design choices, and that's how you save the game - you have to sleep somewhere or close the game. So, you're not just getting the full heal, you're also getting a save spot. This means the player is going to utilize one of the beds in the camp to sleep basically 100% of the time. Which on top of being extremely powerful, is also quite macabre. And I think that might be the point he's making? This mechanic of POI that are often small camps with some enemies to fight ends up with sleeping there afterwards being a baked in part of the process, and a AAA game would likely have the 'and then sleep in the camp' step removed. Instead, it kinda works for Stoneshard because of how it paints your character's morals (well, lack of) along with the usefulness of it in an otherwise punishing game.
@@trashmyego good point, your save also gets deleted upon reloading the game from an exit save vs a sleep save which is safe.
@@trashmyego Ah that could explain why, thanks both for your comments!
My favorite recent example of this is in Workers & Resources realism mode. Most city builders allow you to just tear down what you built. You get anywhere from 100% to 0% of the cost refunded, and often it is 50%. So what about not only refunding 0% but, just as in real life, having to get demolition charges, take the structure down, collect all of the rubble and take it to various specialty dumps? This is more than a rough edge. The impact to the game experience is that planning now becomes not just important, but critical. So if you like planning, you don't want to make it easy to not-plan. I see it as a design flaw to allow easily making changes in a city builder. If it doesn't have planning then what is the point?
I'm literally playing stoneshard while watching this video. Love it, it's so unforgiving, and at times, very unlucky. But nothing is more thrilling than surviving with 1hp on permadeath.
A shame it's gotten so many bad reviews because they've failed to hit release dates on their roadmap. It's made by Ukranians and Russians so it's no surprise they've had delays lol
This is a great video! I would love to see you cover Path of Exile´s design decisions in depth since it has been heralding a lot more modern designs for isometric arpgs and the reason for its friction in a lot of its systems from both path of exile 1 and path of exile 2
If you constently treat people like they're dumb they will always stay dumb... that's why I always say to not treat children like children.
Happy to see Stoneshard in the thumbnail. One of my favorite games ever despite still being in early access.
I just downloaded it because i heard it was unforgiving
problem with rough edges is that they demand a lot from the player. that might be ok and even commonplace in days past where kids got a game or two throughout the year for birthdays and holidays. but we're waaaaaaay past that kind of market. we are in an era of GLUT. our steam back catalog runs into the thousands... EASILY. nvm the entire back catalog of emulation roms. most games will not be in a position to demand that much from players.
sure, players will accede to something like elden ring. but that is a unique market phenom that indies dare not try to replicate.
sad thing is that it's true - the more you put into something, the more you get out of it. but because of the nature of our current market, this may necessarily be a rare thing that happens only for the few games that have the clout to flex its muscles.
You've hit on arguably the main pain point of modern game design in big productions: game design is too focused on UX these days.
While I do understand the validity of data driven design from a business perspective, I do feel that it alienates core audiences, resulting in this feel of blandness you describe.
I feel like there has been somewhat of an unspoken movement in modern game design to put some friction back in via accessibility features.
It is an interesting way to both improve usability, and bring back the difficulty settings, and would love to see more game designers lean in that direction.
An example of the above is playing Metal Gear Solid V without the x-ray feature;
You can still mark soldiers with your binoculars, but now you need to look at the map to see where they are.
The game even has a somewhat of an hidden map visualization mode to accommodate for this play style.
The extra friction from no x-ray really added to the fantasy of being a solo operative infiltrating an enemy outpost, putting more focus on the planning and scouting rather than on players reaction time.
At the same time I also think that adding extra friction via accessibility settings does add to QA, since you need to make sure that the game hits the intended design no matter which accessibility settings have been selected.
A less successful example of the above is the ability to disable objective markers in Red Dead Redemption 2.
While removing markers does add to the fantasy of the game, it results in a poor user experience since it feels like none of the missions were designed from the ground up with the expectations of mission markers being enabled.
Strangely enough the decision Rockstar made there is to accept that the player is focused on the minimal at all times, and work around that by adding a cinematic auto horse gallop camera.
I suggest you try, if you haven't already, 7 Days to Die with the Afterlife mod. I've played nearly all of the games you mentioned and many more and way that difficulty is managed in ways to increase fun without becoming tedious (the downside to your notion here) is done at the highest level I have experienced. Very immersive when there is real exploration, a story you are entirely creating on your own, and a perfect balance creating challenge but no tedium. Valheim comes close here, but it can get tedious at times.
Textbook game design becomes too mundane and familiar to gamers.
There are so many gamers now that the focus should always be on them, rather than players completely new to gaming
Made me think of my favorite game: Space Station 13. It's _very_ rough around the edges, not streamlined at all and unapologetically not for everyone, but it's also an experience unlike any other.
How is Stoneshard's healing system a rough edge? It's more like one of the well crafted systems of that game, something like in STALKER Anomaly GAMMA.
Stoneshard.
The pain system, body part damage system, make battle much realistic alot.
If there is only one health bar with HP potion, battle is much boring because just head to head stat check game
but now, you have to be caution, plan
and you have to check what weapon/skill your enemies have
you cant just go all in the fight all the enemies you see ,because your max HP reduce after being hit, you cant heal immediately, you have to divided them into small group, ambush them at corner
if there is tank with archer at backline
you should rush behind some obstacle before fighting the tank ( so the obstacle may block the arrow)
arrow damage is not very high compare with 2H weapon
but the limb damage caused by arrow can cause big trouble during the fight with their melee tank
for example, I wont head to head fighting a 2H axe holder
2H axe holder have super high chance to cause bleeding
and bleeding damage is a super easy to "miss"calculation during the heat of battle
At the end is just a health bar, not one but six or seven.
theres this feature on certain mobile game (fk i forgot what it is) its basically roguelite autobattler but you grew your hero passive, but they have limited number of slot and a passive could take more than one slot, to increase the slot you have to get negative passive, they give extra slot in exchange for their negative ability, some are fatal, some can be get aroundit it. is this also "rough edge"? or just a feature
I have developed such a distatest for hand-holding in games these days, when the tutorial already forces you or basically locks you in and or the game doesn't let me think on my own for a second. Recently I played Stalker 2 and I had so much joy to explore the world on my own, no numbers go big, or meaningless level or stats. you get good gear to put it on, no matter how you managed to get your fingers on it.
What makes it even worse IMHO is when a game does not handhold, you have some 'game journalist' who needs 4h to find the door to the next level and gives it a 4/10 for bad design.
There are also cases of games that got patched to death because of the lack of focusing on a target audience, if you try to make a game for everyone, at the end you have nobody who is interested.
Really interesting video. Publishers and devs should take note and stop this endless supply of boring games.
I'm curious what you think of the item upgrade system in Two Worlds. Adding identical items(same sword visual) with different stats together to combine them felt very satisfying in that game. But I have rarely seen a similar system in games since. Would love to hear you talk about different loot and upgrade systems like Barony's.
This is a great video. Subscribed! I hate floating marker design, which feels like visual pollution. Also, I dislike most types of "input assist", which are basically outsourcing gameplay (e.g. lock-on). Mount & Blade and even the Elder Scrolls are good positive examples imo.
I also love the tradeoff design where you gain something at the expense of something and can often bypass issues with synergy. This was used on some KCD's perks (some call that "sidegrades"). It is a shame that it seems they will lean more towards "upgrades" on the sequel.
Outward is another great game to check out when it comes to rough edges.
This was a treat to listen to. Thank you! I have been building out concepts for a few games and playing with changing up the standard rpg stats and systems, so your knowledge and perspectives on these diamonds in the rough was really nice to have this morning. Cheers!
Im so glad you found it valuable
blue lock reference.
Mordheim probably has a “bad” design, by AAA standard, but man the game goes hard
Fantastic video, especially since it highlights quality indie gems. I found and played Barony because of this, and its fantastic. Thanks
When your budget is in the tens--if not hundreds--of millions of dollars, you want to expand the accessibility of the game to the maximum possible audience, which means dumbing down the puzzles, quests, mechanics, UI, everything, to a lowest common denominator.
Leaving a like and a comment to help the algorithm. Nice sums, good 3 games you mention here!
Much appreciated!
Stoneshard is the best gameplay ever!
have you ever talk about kenshi ??
Ha, Kenshi is one of the first games I thought of. And I haven’t even played it.
@adamkallin5160 you will have a lot of fun play that game.
Kenshi is pretty amazing. It definitely does not hold your hand, and if you do the wrong thing, the NPCs will paint the walls with you.
Very interesting topic here! Modern titles certainly like to overdo "smoothing out" the experience, to the point at wich I am being treated like an infant.
stoneshard, superhard, I agreed.
I bought stoneshard at Feb/2020, unable to get through the game even I put 20 hour in it. Too brutal, grind hard but low efficient, punishing by minor mistake
after latest update - RtR, there are ton of video on youtube, and player online on STEAM shoot up to 8k (which usually ~3xx )
I open the game again afer left it there for 4 years
OMG, addictive!
still punishing, brutal, but reasonable a lot
I love the feel that
I am human, not hero, I am fragile,
The world is brutal, unforgiving,
but I can handle with wisdom, caution and planning.
I am looking forwards they let us create own character
but the speed of updating, is kind of a concern lol
What is a game on 5:22 ??
Thats New World from Amazon Games. MMORPG.
In fairness, with regards to your WoW example of Mankirk's Wife, you're mostly right that these kinds of quests have been polished down to a much smoother edge, though you overlooked that there are also far more secret quests, unlocks, treasure hunts, and hidden collectables in the game than ever before; many more than ever existed in vanilla, which has led to the formation of massive communities working to unravel them. The big difference is that these conversations don't happen in game anymore, so much as on websites comment sections and Discords; there's certainly a cost to that, reducing the sense of in-game cooperation and community, though it's hard to blame Blizzard for that societal trend - the game has become far too big for Barrens chat.
While I agree that friction is an important and often underappreciated element of design, I also tend to believe that the decision to streamline the leveling/campaign process and move those exploration/discovery elements to more optional areas of the game was the right decision for the majority of players. The friction still exists, just without forcing everyone into it from the earliest stages of the game.
Also in fairness, I beat up on WoW alot but it comes from a place of love not just for the game but also the team. It defines a massive part of my lifes journey.
I should probably do a “everything i fucking love about wow video” one of these days
@@AndrewChambersDesign That's ok; I didn't take it as beating up on WoW, and it did a great job of expressing your point. It just leads into a deeper conversation on the evolving player trends and online resources which prompted those changes... though of course that's a big tangent that wasn't the topic of this particular video!
svarog's dream is another good one.
As a designer I truly enjoyed and learned from this episode! Thank you, Andrew,
Glad you enjoyed it!
Let's go stoneshard
It's not just chat that doesn't get used but also the brain.
The video was amazing. I enjoyed watching it all the way through. Thank you, Andrew!
Thankyou! Sincerely appreciate it.
Love the inclusion of stoneshard!
Thanks for the video!
COVER: Realms of Arcania: Blade of Destiny AND Star Trail!!! [SPOILER: The Series does contain coursed items ;-)]
I don't think it's the designers' fault alone. The market eventually demanded easier games because players didn't want to be stuck with "Nintendo difficulty" all the time.
Therefore I stick to the oldies like the Infinity Engine Games, Realms of Arcania, Pathfinder or Ultima.
If you smooth out a game you kinda kill the utilitiarian features of the game...and also that feeling that you as a player broke and abuse the gamemechanics a little bit.
The thing is rpg items are not supposed to be perfect, they have benefits and 1 or 2 drawbacks therefore no optimized game.
Exactly as you described the obscure quest, not perfect. Life is not polished rpg games used to magnify this, diablo was great because of what u described
Stoneshard is da goat man
Right??
We are so spoiled by indie games right now. It's the best.
Decent discussion, but 1:55 is a bad and false dichotomy.
There is a huge design space between where "intentional rough edge" can fall in. Lost in Battle square falls into the needlessly frustrating side of the that design space, where smarter design would have provided similar if not more engagement _and_ a whole space of interesting follow-ups.
Similarly, the "can your mom play it" is a discussion much more about accessibility and much less so about depth and complexity of games.
Lastly, as much as I love and play indy games, many many of them fall into the trap of building systems for system's sake and not towards an actual design goal.
Drova sounds like a 2D Gothic.
Some interesting titles there!
Where are the 3 games?
Great video! Thank you.
Cheers mate!
This is about computer games. You should make that clear in the title.
great video.
I'm not convinced. As humans, we remember and tell stories about hardships (even in games), but that doesn't make the rough edges a virtue. People forgive the warts if the underlying game is good enough to look past them, but it doesn't mean the warts are why they are enjoying the game. This sort of thinking is used as an excuse to justify lazy design all the time.
It would be as if car manufacturers noticed that people have fond memories of their first (piece-of-junk) cars and set out to design cars to be a little broken down right off the assembly line.
This topic and no mention of Kenshi makes me not even remotely take you serious on this.
Thanks
Enemies not respawning is, and always will be bad game design. It is design that will lead to you having a dead world rather than something that's fun to explore.
Different perspective : enemies constantly respawning means your character has zero effect on the world, so why even bother killing monsters and bandits, just run past them or stop playing.
Of course, it depends on how much backtracking and combat the game expects, and the respawn rate can be reasonable/realistic instead of all-or-nothing.
@armelior4610 unless your game revolves around political and city-state reform, you killing bandits does not solve the problem that led to bandits existing. It is perfectly reasonable for bandits and wolves and other things to respond consistently through gameplay as it is representative of a larger world and a longer time passes within the game compared to the real world. You killing a few wolves and then no wolves ever showing back up is you having no impact on the world because time is literally not moving forward.
Excuse poor design and bad choices as "rough edges." Lame. Design it right, make it right.
it's mankrik, not mankirk :(