Balancing Choice With Irreversible Consequences In Games 352
The Moving Pixels blog has an article about the delicate balance within video games between giving players meaningful choices and consequences that cannot necessarily be changed if the player doesn't like her choice afterward. Quoting:
"One of my more visceral experiences in gaming came recently while playing Mass Effect 2, in which a series of events led me to believe that I'd just indirectly murdered most of my crew. When the cutscenes ended, I was rocking in my chair, eyes wide, heart pounding, and as control was given over to me once more, I did the only thing that I thought was reasonable to do: I reset the game. This, of course, only led to the revelation that the event was preordained and the inference that (by BioWare's logic) a high degree of magical charisma and blue-colored decision making meant that I could get everything back to normal. ... Charitably, I could say BioWare at least did a good job of conditioning my expectations in such a way that the game could garner this response, but the fact remains: when confronted with a consequence that I couldn't handle, my immediate player's response was to stop and get a do-over. Inevitability was only something that I could accept once it was directly shown to me."
If I wanted consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, if I wanted my actions to have consequences, I'd be living real life, not playing video games!
Just give me a good, linear narrative with lots of explosions.
Successful game (Score:5, Insightful)
When the cutscenes ended, I was rocking in my chair, eyes wide, heart pounding
I call that a successful RPG game/experience & I wish most cRPG's were like this. If I want linear storyline, I'll pick an FPS
People like to talk aboit violence, sex, etc (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this is the most potentially dangerous aspect of games. You can't re-load from a save, or do-over in life. Once you're dead, you're dead. I work at a university, and sometimes it seems like people don't really grasp that if you make a stupid choice, it might be permanent. I sometimes worry that video games might contribute to this attitude.
Re:If I wanted consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
Or playing nethack.
No reset, no checkpoint, no turning back. Unless you cheat every decision is final and will result in you, the game or both changing somewhat.
The only "reset" is to start from scratch which however will result in a completely different game.
Re:If I wanted consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
Nethack - even through it's considered obscure and lacks a user friendly interface is very much like life.
Remember kids - Reality has no second life. What is done is done. And experience is gained. It's only when you are old you know how you should have done things.
The key word is "balance"... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, there are some Really. Fucking. Annoying. ways to do "consequences"(many of them mirror life; but if I wanted that I wouldn't buy your damn game). The worst is probably "one true path(we just aren't telling)": this unwholesome bastard abomination is what you get when the only winnable path is, in fact, as linear as the rail shooter scenario; but the world is enough of a sandbox that you can easily deviate from that one true path in myriad illogical ways. Punishments for stupidity are fine; punishments for failure to use your telepathic powers to intuit, during level one, which apparently useless bits of scene clutter you'll need to have on level ten is bullshit. Also annoying are the "completionist heaven" ones. Homeworld, an otherwise pretty brilliant game, suffered from this. Since each level started you out with what you had accumulated the level before, you were quickly led to realize that after "beating" a given level you were semi-required to set your harvesters to work and wait until every RU in the entire level was in your coffers(extra credit for telepathically knowing which ships you should pre-build so as to not die early in the next level, and which you should avoid building because some deus ex machina is going to give you the superior replacement...)
Unguessable insta-death is also extremely irksome. The original Alone in the Dark suffered from it in a bad way. Hey, I'm in a scary house. I have to go around opening doors... Woops, opening that door immediately drops me to a cutscene of my dying horribly, with no possible clues by which I could have inferred that it was different than any other door. I guess it is time to save-and-check my way around the entire damn place...
That's stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Aye, that's what I tell people who insist I should quit smoking and drinkin. Mah daddy didn't raise no quitter ;)
More seriously, wtf? That strikes me as an incredibly stupid idea. Life is full of situations where quitting is actually the logical alternative.
Trivial example: sending yet another thousand to that poor Nigerian widow, for yet another unexpected bank fee. Less people would end up in huge debt if they just quit instead of throwing more good money after bad.
Equally trivial example: business. Keeping dumping more money in a business that loses them hand over fist can be an a bad idea, and quitting can actually be the sane thing to do. If you think otherwise, tell that to all the stagecoach companies in the 19'th century.
But really, the same goes for war, gambling, or just about anything else.
Even in games, one of the first things you learn in Go is to not throw good pieces after bad, i.e., to know when to quit trying to save a group that's beyond saving. Not only you'll typically end up increasing the other guy's score if you keep at it, but even if he does let you save that group, it's because it's giving him time to take the rest of the board. Knowing when to let go of a group or stop following a ladder is the first step to graduating from noob, so to speak.
Which brings us to entertainment. WTF? If the purpose is to get entertained, what kind of idiot would argue that you should continue doing something that stopped being entertaining, just in the name of some idiotic "not being a quitter?" Would you argue one also shouldn't change TV channels if some uninteresting crap just started? Why or why not? It's as much being a "quitter" as changing the game disc in the computer.
Re:Seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
My issue with ME2 is that some of the decisions were very random: For example, if you don't do the loyalty mission of a specific crew member, then you can't get a ship upgrade that saves a different crew member from death. Therefore, doing the loyalty mission of the second without doing that of the first makes all the effort spent on the second to be wasted. Now, if those crew members were related in any way, or if something made it very obvious that some crew member's missions are more important, it'd make sense. Instead, they happened to give that important mission to a character that is flat and boring, so if people just start doing missions for the characters they like the best first, that mission will be missed.
Re:It's OK. (Score:4, Insightful)
I happened to dabble in video game level design, and wholly support the idea of irreparable harm coming from just simply dumb player choices.. and alot of the older (circa 2000 and before) games let you fsck over yourself like that.... so you just reload from your last save and call it good.. Also I know alot of gamers now that have to have everything -perfect-.. when I was playing FO3, if I locked out a computer or broke a lock, I moved on... rarely was there anything game-breaking behind those barriers anyway, but I know several people that quick-save/load every 30s just to make sure they did it just perfect.. Perfect is no fun, at least to me. :/
Somewhere after Y2K, the industry started focusing more on 'what players wanted' and making sure their games only were 'difficult' by giving the bad guys more hit-points. The good: larger then ever video game sales and number of 'gamers'.. the bad.. most of the games are cranked out white-washed sequels and (this has been since the dawn of time) many companies are just simply too afraid to try something new.. and I think this is where the rise of the smaller/indie game developer will come about.. I'm not saying Tripwire or Introversion will end up sinking EA or Nintendo, but rather, many gamers that are true gamers will end up latching on to the niche that each is developing and enjoy their titles.
But, again, if I wanted that I'd play "reality" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but going on about how it's like reality, is kinda silly in a thread where that's actually the whole complaint. If I wanted something that's exactly like reality, I'd be in reality, not in a computer game.
What I want from a game is something _entertaining_. Realism or any other considerations are not the primary qualities there. They're only good if they help make a more entertaining experience, and should just get the fuck out of the way if not. It's that simple.
In fact, I'd go on a limb and say that even those chanting the silly "but it's like REALITY" mantra, wouldn't really want a game that is exactly like reality. An actual true-to-reality simulation of a medieval adventure would probably be more like:
You're not some noble adventurer, you're a serf (about 80% of the population was.) If you get off your master's demesne to explore anything, you're now a wanted fugitive. You'll likely spend the rest of your miserable life ploughing, reaping and helping maintain the castle and roads in the meantime. The most you'll contribute to a war is having your grain plundered by the enemy or "levied" by your own side. You'll probably die of a horrible disease before reaching 40 years old. Game over.
Well, ok, that's not much fun. Let's try something else. *Flips through the list of Nethack classes*
Ok, you're a knight. Most of the year you're supposed to manage 5 peasant families, and see to it that they produce enough to pay the taxes _and_ survive until next year, and maintain the roads, and pay for your horse and armour, etc. Most knights actually ploughed and reaped themselves too, to make ends meet, especially if they lost a battle differently and are still paying their own ransom. Think: like being saddled with a mortgage for life, except it's just for doing your duty to your king, not for buying a fancy car or house. In the only time when you're not doing that, you're supposed to be doing battle for your liege lord.
Even a scratch during one of these battles can infect and kill you. But that's ok because on such campaigns you're more likely to die of some disease (even kings died of dysentery) than by the sword. And whatever doesn't kill you, will hurt like hell and make you less healthy, not stronger.
The only time you'll actually have enough free time to go exploring dungeons is after 40, which even for most knights means you're a "senior citizen", basically. And probably by now thankful to _not_ risk your life every year. But that's ok, because there are no such dungeons to explore anyway.
And if you do find one, see above: even a 1 inch deep poke with a sword can outright kill or disable you, not just lower your HP for a while. And even a scratch can infect and again kill you.
Hmm, ok, maybe that's not it either... *Flips through the classes some more* Rogue. Well, that's easy, you'd be poor, do a couple of thefts and get hanged. You don't get to explore any dungeons either.
Hmm, well, let's be generous and pretend the rogue is actually a mercenary, which is a more realistic medieval role, and we just decided we want realism:
You're a mercenary, just by virtue that you were the second son and got kicked unceremoniously on the street when your elder brother inherited the family estate. You got treated like dirt by the knights all your life, and used as "wall fodder" in every single assault, before the more valuable troops. You're very unlikely to survive more than a couple of campaigns and causes of death include not just the enemy and disease, but also historically documented cases of the knights on your side charging through the mercenaries at the enemy. E.g., at Crecy, the French knights actually actively hacked down their own retreating crossbowmen mercenaries. In some battles you actually get to fight without pants so you can shit yourself while fighting. Yeah, dysentery was that bad. (See, Agincourt.) Each battle brings you a reminder that if captured, the nobles and knights will be ransomed, but your kind will get hanged. Y
Re:If I wanted consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
Both ME1 and ME2 do a pretty good job of railroading you along the plot while allowing you free choice.
They can do this because, fundamentally, you are 'good guy' either way, which is a hell of a lot easier then games that let you play as 'evil' and then try to have you save everyone for no explicable reason.
You just have the choice of saving the world as Captain Picard or Jack Bauer.
This extends to your bosses. You can either believe them and attempt to follow orders or you can just ignore whatever they say and either do what's 'right', or ignore them and do what's 'efficient'. And said orders can vary from reasonable to political asscovering nonsense in the first game, and from reasonable to clearly corporate corrupt in the second. But they are also both 'good guys', at least for the main goals they send you on. (Although you can get rather morally dubious side missions from both, although you can do whatever you want on them with no repercussions, because your bosses can't afford to 'punish' you in any way without risking your failure.)
It is a very well-designed alignment system.
Re:But, again, if I wanted that I'd play "reality" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's OK. (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be a requirement for a modern game to isolate its challenges and auto-save. You can still build a successful narrative, but the gameplay prevents itself from getting unnecessarily redundant. The Gears of War and Half-life series are great examples of doing it right.
Re:It's OK. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a reason for that rule that the videogame level designer proposed. If you made it through each door the first time, you're one of the lucky 20% of players who did not have to revert to an older save to retry that section. And the major part you fail to realize is that about 20% of players will not make that first door, not realize what that means, and is trapped, looking for a way out, can't, and gets frustrated.
The arguement that you think it makes it a better game for reason x is moot because if it were such an incredibly good game mechanic, you'd see a lot more of it. Valve has spent a lot of time researching how players enjoy their games - and the scenario you described is one every level designer tends to avoid for the very reasons I described: the same amount of players who enjoy it will roughly equal the amount of players who will HATE it. If players are already having fun, omitting that section of the game doesn't hurt, because you won't be frustrating a portion of your audience to please another.
I guarantee more people would enjoy a blast door sequence if the blast doors could be re-opened through a relatively punishing mechanic (like heading back to the utility room to reset the sequence) - but not one that literally forces you to stop where you are and restart from an earlier section of the game.
You think a monorail makes a game feel unrealistic? Try reloading from a save point. How does THAT feel real?
Re:If I wanted consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
I played Nethack with perma-death! The first time I played i was killed by one of the stupid cheap ways that game can kill you. I deleted the game and have never played it again. I don't even play games with checkpoint-only saves. I have enough tedium in real life; I'm not at all interesting in repeating game content over and over.
Re:It's OK. (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason why inescapable traps are a no-no in game design is that players may not realize they're trapped. If you've ever run around a level for hours, looking for an item that you think will solve a puzzle but doesn't actually exist, you know that these events totally kill a game. If there are inescapable traps in a game and the player can no longer proceed, then the game should inform the player of that fact somehow, e.g. by causing the character to get killed within a short time of the mistake.
Eh, it could be worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, it could be worse. E.g., another Bioware specialty, the impulsive turncoat who you _do_ get to put out of his/her misery yourself because he actually joins the bad guy and starts attacking you.
I mean, my end battle of NWN2 went something like this. Mind you, not _literally_, but a decent "artist's impression":
So you've spent countless hours gathering your team, solving their side quests, listening to their sob stories, and training and arming them for the final confrontation with the incarnation of supreme evil. Just as you're done listening to his mandatory gloating and command your team to draw your weapons, your druid interrupts:
Druid: "Err, actually I'm joining him against you."
You: "What the...? This is the guy who killed all your friends, desecrated your sacred grove, and tried to kill you. Repeatedly. And you're joining him?"
Druid: "Err, yes, but you never bought me a pony!"
You: "Lady, there are no ponies in this game."
Druid: "Excuses, excuses. And you only listened to me sob about how mom loved my sister more than me 100 times, disregarding my emotional need to do that before and after each rest."
You: "Lady, it's D&D. We've been hitting rest every 5 minutes so you can remember your spells. Far from me to suggest seeing a neurologist, but... anyway, there's no freaking way anyone'll start _that_ talk again every 5 minutes."
Druid: "Hrmpf! That's just the kind of insensitivity I'm talking about! Well, I'm off!"
You: "Damn! Ok, anyone else feel like sharing anything like that?"
Paladin: "Actually, I'm switching sides too."
You: "What the hell? Dude, why? I thought we were like brothers!"
Paladin: "Your blatant disregard of the lawful good ethos, that's why. I counted no less than 5 cases of jay walking, 2 broken promises to find someone's lost kitten and respectively heirloom underpants, 4 cases of public drunkenness..."
You: "Ok, ok, I get the idea. But that guy is chaotic evil and your sworn arch-enemy!"
Paladin: "Eh, I'll just atone afterwards."
You: "Fuck! Anyone else?"
Rogue: "Me too."
You: "But... but... didn't I buy you all that stuff, and go on all your silly quests to find your long lost puppy and chuck eggs at your ex-boyfriend's house, and all that?"
Rogue: "Yeah, but you never read me bedtime stories, and made fun of my cap with cat ears, and seemed to enjoy telling me that there's no Santa."
You: "Lady, you're twenty-eight years old. That's twenty years overdue to learn about Santa."
Rogue: "Hrm. Meanie. Besides, just look at him. He's sooo dreamy with those bulging muscles and red glowing eyes..."
Evil Boss: "I'LL RIP YOUR HEART OUT AND EAT IT!"
Rogue: "Oooh, kinky!"
It may even seem palatable when it's, say, the immature nerd stereotype of a sorceress that does an impulsive jumping ship because she thinks you (as a male character) like the male mage more than her. It's more of a WTF when it's the mature, level headed mage guy who is on a mission to stop the Evil Boss deserts to him and fights you, because he thinks you like the sorceress more than him.
I mean, fuck, I'm even all understanding about other lifestyles and orientations and all, but trying to kill me for liking the girl more is a bit extreme ;)
Or like in KOTOR where, because Bastilla got kidnapped and tortured by Darth Malak, while I on the other hand am on a quest to save her, of course the next time I meet Bastilla, she tries to kill me for Malak. I mean, gee, Stockholm Syndrome is good and fine, but when you start killing people for the guy that kidnapped and tortured you, you're taking it a tad too far ;)