What's One "Old Game" Mechanic That You Don't Miss?

[Amechra]

I know. I love the relatively recent design philosophy that games don't have to be hard to be worthwhile, and that players don't have to display a sufficient amount of skill to appreciate a game's full contact unless the difficulty is a specific design choice. I was delighted when I heard Mass Effect 3 would have a "Story" difficulty, and I love that Celeste has collectibles that are purely optional so you can just follow the story if you like.

I recall hearing that in the NES era Japanese developers would specifically make American versions of games harder because they disagreed with the practice of video game rental, and it ensured nobody could fully appreciate the game without either multiple rentals or just buying the game. Don't quote me on that, I may need to verify it.

I kinda want to see an indie game where you have to unlock easier difficulties, just to be contrary.

Like how Lost Vikings 2 gave all of your characters superpowers if you managed to get a character killed in the first level (which has no enemies or stage hazards).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I recall hearing that in the NES era Japanese developers would specifically make American versions of games harder because they disagreed with the practice of video game rental, and it ensured nobody could fully appreciate the game without either multiple rentals or just buying the game. Don't quote me on that, I may need to verify it.

You've got it exactly backwards, actually.

The original game designers for the NES came from designing coin-op arcade machines, which were punishingly difficult in order to suck as many quarters from you as they could. And they carried that philosophy over to NES game design because these games were *expensive*, relatively speaking (for the 80's), and so a kid would need to be able to spend a lot of time on one because they might not get very many.

Then they got flack for making punishing style games, the Japanese creators went the other way, made games for America that were distinctly, occasionally insultingly, easier. What would be the 'hard' difficulty setting in the US would be the only setting in Japan, that sort of thing.

Plus titles like Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, called 'Final Fantasy America' in Japan. Which wasn't even going to BE a Final Fantasy title, but they felt FF 3 (the one with the Onion Knights) was going to be too difficult for Americans, and so took another game that was from a different IP that wasn't already established and slapped the Final Fantasy logo on it and kicked it out the door.

[warty goblin]

If you have no interest in replaying the game, I'd suggest that the game wasn't that good in the first place. That's not to say there aren't story focused games that you might only play once and then leave for a few years before playing again, if you ever get around to it, but if the gameplay is engaging and the story variable enough (even if it is only in the details), then you'll want to find out what those easter eggs are. The kind of "hey, why don't you play again but easier" features are poor design in my book; it's a cheap shot at trying to make the game replayable. Replayability shouldn't be about being easier, it should be about being different.

If I'm interested in replaying a game (that isn't something like a strategy game with a skirmish mode) it's because the experience it offered the first time was really good, not because I want to do something different the second time through. Making a game more replayable is, in my view, generally a misallocation of effort, because the thing needs to playable in the first place.

[JellyPooga]

If I'm interested in replaying a game (that isn't something like a strategy game with a skirmish mode) it's because the experience it offered the first time was really good, not because I want to do something different the second time through. Making a game more replayable is, in my view, generally a misallocation of effort, because the thing needs to playable in the first place.

That's sort of my point. A good game will be good regardless of the actual features included or not; I'm not about to criticise a FPS for not having RPG elements, or an RPG for not having RTS ones. An in-depth RPG with a myriad of esoteric and niche-use skills is not an inherently bad design choice if the game is well designed and enjoyable to play. A given player might not like the design elements used in a given game and that's fine; opinons are allowed

[Toric]

You've got it exactly backwards, actually.

The original game designers for the NES came from designing coin-op arcade machines, which were punishingly difficult in order to suck as many quarters from you as they could. And they carried that philosophy over to NES game design because these games were *expensive*, relatively speaking (for the 80's), and so a kid would need to be able to spend a lot of time on one because they might not get very many.

Then they got flack for making punishing style games, the Japanese creators went the other way, made games for America that were distinctly, occasionally insultingly, easier. What would be the 'hard' difficulty setting in the US would be the only setting in Japan, that sort of thing.

Plus titles like Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, called 'Final Fantasy America' in Japan. Which wasn't even going to BE a Final Fantasy title, but they felt FF 3 (the one with the Onion Knights) was going to be too difficult for Americans, and so took another game that was from a different IP that wasn't already established and slapped the Final Fantasy logo on it and kicked it out the door.

Cool, thanks for clearing that up!

I've always questioned the choice of increasing difficulty in order to stretch playability. I've never had a problem replaying a game again and again and again if I like it. James Bond 007 for the Game Boy? You can finish that game in maybe five hours. I've beaten it dozens of times.

[Hunter Noventa]

@Kats: so much yes.

Currently replaying FFX. Very irritating.

Or in like Suikoden you have a party of 6 but a million playable characters.

At least Suikoden scales XP gained by character level, bring a level 5 character to your party thats in the 40s, and they'll be caught up in like, 5 battles.

[Gnoman]

You've got it exactly backwards, actually.

The original game designers for the NES came from designing coin-op arcade machines, which were punishingly difficult in order to suck as many quarters from you as they could. And they carried that philosophy over to NES game design because these games were *expensive*, relatively speaking (for the 80's), and so a kid would need to be able to spend a lot of time on one because they might not get very many.

Then they got flack for making punishing style games, the Japanese creators went the other way, made games for America that were distinctly, occasionally insultingly, easier. What would be the 'hard' difficulty setting in the US would be the only setting in Japan, that sort of thing.

Plus titles like Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, called 'Final Fantasy America' in Japan. Which wasn't even going to BE a Final Fantasy title, but they felt FF 3 (the one with the Onion Knights) was going to be too difficult for Americans, and so took another game that was from a different IP that wasn't already established and slapped the Final Fantasy logo on it and kicked it out the door.

You're actually the one that has it backwards, mostly. There were a few games made easier for US release (Mega Man II added an easier difficulty, Super Mario Bros. 3 had the "level 2" power ups only drop you down to Mushroom level instead of the small Mario (giving you an extra hit), and a few other examples), but it was far more common to make the US version significantly harder. Enemies in Castlevania III do much more damage, The Adventures of Bayou Billy (US release) is borderline unplayable because it is massively harder than Mad City (the Japanese original), River City Ransom has less health and no option to disable friendly fire in 2P mode, lots of other examples. This is explicitly (as in, Japanese developers have straight up stated "This is why we did this") because game rentals are legal in the US and illegal in Japan. Games like FFIV were the rare exception, not the rule.

US releases of Final Fantasy II and III were not scrapped due to difficulty, but to timing. By the time II (let alone III!) would have been ready, the SNES would be out in the US. This meant that spending an enormous amount of money and dev time on an English translation of a Famicom/NES game was not a wise idea. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest wasn't some game they slapped the Final Fantasy name on (You're probably thinking of the Final Fantasy Adventure and Final Fantasy Legend games, which were rebranded Mana and SaGa titles) - Square noticed that the RPG genre wasn't big in the US, so they created FF:MQ for the US market as a relatively light "This is an RPG - now that you know what it is, we make more!" introduction to the genre. This is also why FFIV was made easier - they did not expect US gamers to be familiar with the genre, and didn't want to overwhelm them. The fact that the US had a "Video games are for KIDS!!!!!!" attitude (partially because of Nintendo Of America's content policies) which Japan did not also influenced the decision.

[KatsOfLoathing]

Agreed. To make it worse, many games that do this also have one main character that you cannot remove from your party, causing them to become over-leveled relative to everyone else if you take the time to grind a lot. And often those games also have sections where you have to use a certain character in your party temporarily, meaning if you haven't been either using that character regularly or grinding to keep them leveled up, then they're an active liability when you become stuck with them.

Final Fantasy IX does both of those things, yep. I'd have probably given up on the game a while back if the general difficulty wasn't actually all that bad barring some certain stretches (looking at you, Burmecia/Cleyra arc that puts you through like four dungeons and two long overland sections without a healer). There is, however, a midgame event that requires you to use all eight party members in two simultaneous teams, you have to make said teams at the beginning of the quest and can't change thereafter, and one half of the event doesn't allow magic, leaving you with a team of probably-underleveled, definitely squishy mages to carry the other half. If I hadn't been warned by the Internet beforehand, I'm sure I would've been grinding my teeth throughout.

[Morty]

That's sort of my point. A good game will be good regardless of the actual features included or not; I'm not about to criticise a FPS for not having RPG elements, or an RPG for not having RTS ones. An in-depth RPG with a myriad of esoteric and niche-use skills is not an inherently bad design choice if the game is well designed and enjoyable to play. A given player might not like the design elements used in a given game and that's fine; opinons are allowed

You've got it backwards, actually. The fact that some people manage to enjoy long lists of imbalanced and superfluous games doesn't make it a good design choice.

[Traab]

Final Fantasy IX does both of those things, yep. I'd have probably given up on the game a while back if the general difficulty wasn't actually all that bad barring some certain stretches (looking at you, Burmecia/Cleyra arc that puts you through like four dungeons and two long overland sections without a healer). There is, however, a midgame event that requires you to use all eight party members in two simultaneous teams, you have to make said teams at the beginning of the quest and can't change thereafter, and one half of the event doesn't allow magic, leaving you with a team of probably-underleveled, definitely squishy mages to carry the other half. If I hadn't been warned by the Internet beforehand, I'm sure I would've been grinding my teeth throughout.

Speaking of FF9, Blargh, that strategy guide though! For years it was tradition that these games would come out with an official strategy guide that was generally a major help for figuring out everything in the game. Sure there would often be secrets not covered in the guide, but probably 90% or so of the rpg content was included. But FF9, I couldnt believe what a ripoff it was. It covered like 50% of the content, then told you to go to their online site and type in a keyword to find out more. I mean, i kinda get what theyw ere aiming for, an online guide would probably be much cheaper than a gossy paper one for them to provide so it was probably meant to ease us into it, but good lord did it stink! I remember having all sorts of issues just using the freaking site, and in the end just gave up and went to the unlicensed gamefaqs and such. FF9 was probably my favorite title in the series. I felt like it blended gorgeous graphics with the classic gameplay style that I loved so much with an entertaining story. But that GUIDE!!!!!!

[Triaxx]

Fun trick about that two party section of FF9? You've got two characters who shine in the 'wrong' dungeon. Dagger's still mostly non-functional anyway, so she's deadweight either place. But send her to the anti-magic zone as a back line healer. Potion early, potion often and then you don't waste combatant turns. And then Steiner stays with the mages, so he can do his combining with Vivi. Easy mode, and I've never seen a guide mention it.

Though by the same Token, the FF7 section without Cloud is extremely annoying. At least FF8 had the other members gain some off-screen XP so that section wasn't too painful. (And it also auto-unjunctioned the off-screen party.)

[Traab]

Fun trick about that two party section of FF9? You've got two characters who shine in the 'wrong' dungeon. Dagger's still mostly non-functional anyway, so she's deadweight either place. But send her to the anti-magic zone as a back line healer. Potion early, potion often and then you don't waste combatant turns. And then Steiner stays with the mages, so he can do his combining with Vivi. Easy mode, and I've never seen a guide mention it.

Though by the same Token, the FF7 section without Cloud is extremely annoying. At least FF8 had the other members gain some off-screen XP so that section wasn't too painful. (And it also auto-unjunctioned the off-screen party.)

I honestly never had trouble with ff7. It was probably the easiest game to straight up beat in the series imo. Materia meant pretty much everyone could hit for max damage with max hp and mana so barring some specific skills it really didnt matter much what characters you used. Now ff6 could get obnoxious because of the multiple times you needed to use all your characters in various parties so you couldnt just use edgar sabin cyan and gogo and call it a day (or whoever your personal preference may be) Plus, iirc, when you had the multi party dungeons it wasnt always clear which group was going to fight the boss or bosses without a guide so you had to water down your groups somewhat by placing a powerhouse in every group just to be safe and so on.

[JellyPooga]

You've got it backwards, actually. The fact that some people manage to enjoy long lists of imbalanced and superfluous games doesn't make it a good design choice.

What defines a good design choice? Is it the choice that makes a game the most popular to the widest audience? The one that you, personally, enjoy the most? The one voted on as the best compromise by the design team? The one that gets the game released on schedule as opposed to stuck in development hell? The one that appeals most to the target demographic? All of the above and more?

Careful with making judgement calls like that; some might take offence...

[Amechra]

Here's one that feels like an old-school mechanic, but I'm not sure actually is: highly random games with elaborate quests.

I'm thinking stuff like Reigns, where there are 4-5 events you need to complete if you're going to get the good ending. Whether or not you'll even see those events during each run is completely random, and the correct response to each event isn't intuitive.

[Traab]

Here's one that feels like an old-school mechanic, but I'm not sure actually is: highly random games with elaborate quests.

I'm thinking stuff like Reigns, where there are 4-5 events you need to complete if you're going to get the good ending. Whether or not you'll even see those events during each run is completely random, and the correct response to each event isn't intuitive.

Sounds like an awful mix of rogue-like with standard rpg elements. Like, diablo 3 has some elements of that, where each zone has a long list of special events that you wont see every playthrough as the new map is generated, but none of them are vital to quests without automatically being included. For example on bounty runs you will always find the event you need for the bounty on that run.

[Rynjin]

What defines a good design choice? Is it the choice that makes a game the most popular to the widest audience? The one that you, personally, enjoy the most? The one voted on as the best compromise by the design team? The one that gets the game released on schedule as opposed to stuck in development hell? The one that appeals most to the target demographic? All of the above and more?

Careful with making judgement calls like that; some might take offence...

The answer is complicated and most textbooks on the subject give you a copout answer, but one thing most professions that involve designing something do have the same conclusion re: complexity of design: If it adds complexity, it needs to add equal value to that complexity (and preferably more). More complex = more work and more chances for things to go wrong.

If you're adding 27 skills to the game, that's man hours (in coding, bug reporting/fixing, playstesting, etc. etc. across multiple sprints) that can potentially be spent elsewhere. So whatever that adds to the game needs to be worth those hours.

If you can get away with using 13 broader skills instead, that's typically better design. You have a sharper focus, and can spend more time adding more reasons to use those skills, more content to the game that the majority of players can interact with, rather than catering to one niche group each with the 14 less usable skills.

Having 3 different versions of Repair (ex Repair Vehicles, Repair Weapons, and Repair Electronics) will almost never add more value than simply having the singular Repair skill. Any quests or other challenges you could build around Repair Vehicles can just as easily be built around Repair; nothing need be cut from the hypothetical game's content.

Additionally, added complexity decreases usability. Decreasing usability without adding increased functionality is ALWAYS bad design, as at that point you are gating off segments of your potential customers for literally no reason other than your own inability to trim the fat. And no, having 3 different versions of Repair does not increase functionality, as we already covered.

[Morty]

What defines a good design choice? Is it the choice that makes a game the most popular to the widest audience? The one that you, personally, enjoy the most? The one voted on as the best compromise by the design team? The one that gets the game released on schedule as opposed to stuck in development hell? The one that appeals most to the target demographic? All of the above and more?

Careful with making judgement calls like that; some might take offence...

The answer is complicated and most textbooks on the subject give you a copout answer, but one thing most professions that involve designing something do have the same conclusion re: complexity of design: If it adds complexity, it needs to add equal value to that complexity (and preferably more). More complex = more work and more chances for things to go wrong.

If you're adding 27 skills to the game, that's man hours (in coding, bug reporting/fixing, playstesting, etc. etc. across multiple sprints) that can potentially be spent elsewhere. So whatever that adds to the game needs to be worth those hours.

If you can get away with using 13 broader skills instead, that's typically better design. You have a sharper focus, and can spend more time adding more reasons to use those skills, more content to the game that the majority of players can interact with, rather than catering to one niche group each with the 14 less usable skills.

Having 3 different versions of Repair (ex Repair Vehicles, Repair Weapons, and Repair Electronics) will almost never add more value than simply having the singular Repair skill. Any quests or other challenges you could build around Repair Vehicles can just as easily be built around Repair; nothing need be cut from the hypothetical game's content.

Additionally, added complexity decreases usability. Decreasing usability without adding increased functionality is ALWAYS bad design, as at that point you are gating off segments of your potential customers for literally no reason other than your own inability to trim the fat. And no, having 3 different versions of Repair does not increase functionality, as we already covered.

I will add that, in this specific context, good design is one that doesn't deceive the user. If a game gives me a skill or some other option, I expect that investing in the it will reward me. If I find out later that it doesn't, outside some very specific circumstances, that's bad.

[JellyPooga]

The answer is complicated and most textbooks on the subject give you a copout answer, but one thing most professions that involve designing something do have the same conclusion re: complexity of design: If it adds complexity, it needs to add equal value to that complexity (and preferably more). More complex = more work and more chances for things to go wrong.

If you're adding 27 skills to the game, that's man hours (in coding, bug reporting/fixing, playstesting, etc. etc. across multiple sprints) that can potentially be spent elsewhere. So whatever that adds to the game needs to be worth those hours.

If you can get away with using 13 broader skills instead, that's typically better design. You have a sharper focus, and can spend more time adding more reasons to use those skills, more content to the game that the majority of players can interact with, rather than catering to one niche group each with the 14 less usable skills.

Having 3 different versions of Repair (ex Repair Vehicles, Repair Weapons, and Repair Electronics) will almost never add more value than simply having the singular Repair skill. Any quests or other challenges you could build around Repair Vehicles can just as easily be built around Repair; nothing need be cut from the hypothetical game's content.

Additionally, added complexity decreases usability. Decreasing usability without adding increased functionality is ALWAYS bad design, as at that point you are gating off segments of your potential customers for literally no reason other than your own inability to trim the fat. And no, having 3 different versions of Repair does not increase functionality, as we already covered.

This is as may be, but the point stands that "adding 27 skills to a game" is not, in and of itself, bad design. Less is not always more in this regard. If you have the funding/man-hours/expertise to make those 27 skills work in the intended way (which can include niche or esoteric use), it can be good design if the target audience likes or expects the added complexity. Yes, you may cut off certain demographics, but that is a design choice whatever game you're making.

Designing an FPS? You automatically cut off anyone that doesn't like FPSs. Is that bad design? No. Streamline your skill system from 20 skills down to 10 easy to use, simple skills that you can't get wrong? Oops, you just spent man hours cutting content and in doing so, cut off a demographic that would have enjoyed that extra complexity. Bad design? No. It's just a design choice.

Just because you or even many people don't like a certain element, doesn't make it bad design. Bad implementation, poor information sharing, unclear interfaces..these are bad design. Granted, it's easier to get some elements wrong than others, but that doesn't make them bad choices unless you actually get them wrong.

[Balmas]

What defines a good design choice? Is it the choice that makes a game the most popular to the widest audience? The one that you, personally, enjoy the most? The one voted on as the best compromise by the design team? The one that gets the game released on schedule as opposed to stuck in development hell? The one that appeals most to the target demographic? All of the above and more?

Now, I'll freely admit that I might be misreading your post here, but it feels like you're trying to equate personal preference in game mechanics with good/bad game design; since there's no objectively best "preference" in game mechanics, there is therefore no objectively good or bad game design.

Before I spend energy on typing up a rebuttal, am I understanding that argument correctly?

[Rynjin]

This is as may be, but the point stands that "adding 27 skills to a game" is not, in and of itself, bad design. Less is not always more in this regard. If you have the funding/man-hours/expertise to make those 27 skills work in the intended way (which can include niche or esoteric use), it can be good design if the target audience likes or expects the added complexity. Yes, you may cut off certain demographics, but that is a design choice whatever game you're making.

Sure.

Not relevant to the discussion, as it was about a specific game (Wasteland 2), and not a hypothetical.

Designing an FPS? You automatically cut off anyone that doesn't like FPSs.

That's called "choosing your demographic", yes.

Streamline your skill system from 20 skills down to 10 easy to use, simple skills that you can't get wrong? Oops, you just spent man hours cutting content and in doing so, cut off a demographic that would have enjoyed that extra complexity. Bad design? No. It's just a design choice.

...You do realize NOT doing something doesn't take any time, right? Unless you're really incompetent you're not going to implement 20 skills and then spend time removing them. How many skills are going to be in the game is determined before they're added, so it requires no more or less work to DECIDE whether you're going to use 10 or 1000 skills. Except in the sensethat floating 20 skills at all is going to take more time in discussion than 10, but not by a ton, really.

Just because you or even many people don't like a certain element, doesn't make it bad design. Bad implementation, poor information sharing, unclear interfaces..these are bad design. Granted, it's easier to get some elements wrong than others, but that doesn't make them bad choices unless you actually get them wrong.

UI design is completely separate from game design for the most part. Designing a game is about setting goals and executing those goals. If the implementation of your goals conflicts with one or more of your other goals, typically you have a design issue.

Shipping a game with 27 skills where 13 would work is generally going to conflict with goals like "appeal to the average player", "ship the game out on time", and "reduce complexity to increase depth".

It certainly CAN work, but usually does not. look, I love E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy, for example, but there's a reason it wasn't a popular game, and a big part of it is the overwhelming complexity it frontloads the game with, and a lot of that complexity didn't actually add much in the grand scheme (why do you need a Pokemon battle minigame to hack an ATM?).

And yes, popularity is a valuable metric in this discussion. It's not the ONLY one, by a long shot, but if your game doesn't sell enough copies to put food on your team's table, it's failed pretty spectacularly, and reducing bloat in your design is a simple way to help keep that from happening.

[Crow]

Here's one that feels like an old-school mechanic, but I'm not sure actually is: highly random games with elaborate quests.

I'm thinking stuff like Reigns, where there are 4-5 events you need to complete if you're going to get the good ending. Whether or not you'll even see those events during each run is completely random, and the correct response to each event isn't intuitive.

Reigns is just garbage. That game screws you for the sake of screwing you.

[JellyPooga]

Now, I'll freely admit that I might be misreading your post here, but it feels like you're trying to equate personal preference in game mechanics with good/bad game design; since there's no objectively best "preference" in game mechanics, there is therefore no objectively good or bad game design.

Before I spend energy on typing up a rebuttal, am I understanding that argument correctly?

Hmm...no (tentatively). I'm saying that the game mechanics are not a valid metric to measure the value of the game design by. Whether your game has 10 or 100 skills, that choice is not inherently good or bad design. The implementation of those skills, whether they be many or few, is what determines the quality of the design. A game can still be bad with few skills, just as much as it can be bad with many.

Not relevant to the discussion, as it was about a specific game (Wasteland 2), and not a hypothetical.

That's where the discussion started, agreed. It's not where it went.

You do realize NOT doing something doesn't take any time, right?

Gosh, really? I didn't realise. Maybe I'm all turned around on the subject because you tried demeaning me. Or perhaps not. Let's have a civil discussion, yes?

Unless you're really incompetent you're not going to implement 20 skills and then spend time removing them. How many skills are going to be in the game is determined before they're added, so it requires no more or less work to DECIDE whether you're going to use 10 or 1000 skills. Except in the sensethat floating 20 skills at all is going to take more time in discussion than 10, but not by a ton, really.

I'm not even sure where to start addressing this. There are a plethora of reasons why a game might end up cutting content. Including game mechanics.

UI design is completely separate from game design for the most part. Designing a game is about setting goals and executing those goals. If the implementation of your goals conflicts with one or more of your other goals, typically you have a design issue.

Shipping a game with 27 skills where 13 would work is generally going to conflict with goals like "appeal to the average player", "ship the game out on time", and "reduce complexity to increase depth".

It certainly CAN work, but usually does not. look, I love E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy, for example, but there's a reason it wasn't a popular game, and a big part of it is the overwhelming complexity it frontloads the game with, and a lot of that complexity didn't actually add much in the grand scheme (why do you need a Pokemon battle minigame to hack an ATM?).

And yes, popularity is a valuable metric in this discussion. It's not the ONLY one, by a long shot, but if your game doesn't sell enough copies to put food on your team's table, it's failed pretty spectacularly, and reducing bloat in your design is a simple way to help keep that from happening.

Popularity is indeed a valuable metric in your design goals, but it's not always the most important one and goals are not always met. That doesn't change my point.

[Rynjin]

I'm not even sure where to start addressing this. There are a plethora of reasons why a game might end up cutting content. Including game mechanics.

And so we're back to implementing things you don't need is a mistake. Cut content is usually due to lack of time and/or resources to finish them, or some kind of publisher mandate.

[JellyPooga]

And so we're back to implementing things you don't need is a mistake. Cut content is usually due to lack of time and/or resources to finish them, or some kind of publisher mandate.

Making a mistake is not indicative of bad design. Correcting mistakes can be an indication of good design. Too many mistakes is probably indicative of bad, granted and trying to correct them can lead to the aforementioned development hell.

[Rynjin]

Making a mistake is not indicative of bad design. Correcting mistakes can be an indication of good design.

I'm going to have to ask you at this point to define your own terms since you seem to be so fond of making everyone else do so for your own convenience, while your own seem to change with every post.

[JellyPooga]

I'm going to have to ask you at this point to define your own terms since you seem to be so fond of making everyone else do so for your own convenience, while your own seem to change with every post.

I'm fairly sure I've been consistent. I have one point; game features are not indicators of whether a game was badly designed or not.

[Rynjin]

I'm fairly sure I've been consistent. I have one point; game features are not indicators of whether a game was badly designed or not.

Yes, you seem to have a whole lot of "this is not" responses lined up but where that surety comes from I'm not sure, since as I mentioned, you've never put forward what it IS.

I'm just curious as to why exactly you are so sure in your own definition of the term that you can so easily dismiss everybody else in the discussion.

[Erloas]

Popularity and game design can't really be directly applied. There are too many variables. There are poorly designed games that sell well just because they have a famous name. There are also really well designed games that sell poorly because they're not in a popular genre. Good games that just don't have the marketing to get found, etc. We've also seen plenty of cases of "good designs" being stapled into genres where they don't really fit, which then doesn't really make it good design.

Like for instance I really don't want to play a match based PvP FPS where there are dozens of "classes" and many of those classes and equipment is locked behind "experience" which, for me, doesn't add anything I want to the genre but it's being done more and more. But it is a perfectly fine design for an RPG and not a problem for a story driven FPS either. Although some people do like that design.

[Amechra]

Reigns is just garbage. That game screws you for the sake of screwing you.

I mean, I figured as much. It's just that I've seen it in other games as well (Hand of Fate, a little bit in FTL and Slay The Spire, etc). I was wondering if anyone knew where that urge to put in sidequests with that many points of failure comes from.

[JellyPooga]

Yes, you seem to have a whole lot of "this is not" responses lined up but where that surety comes from I'm not sure, since as I mentioned, you've never put forward what it IS.

I'm just curious as to why exactly you are so sure in your own definition of the term that you can so easily dismiss everybody else in the discussion.

Because opinion doesn't count.

I should probably addend my previous statement with "their implementation is". A game feature is not a good or bad design choice. Adding a feature to a game and making it useful to the themes and goals of the game is good design. Adding a feature to the game counter to those themes is bad design. The implementation is what makes good or bad design, in light of the design goals of the game in question. Adding a "jump" function to Command&Conquer clone would be both nonsensical and difficult in my opinion. That doesn't make jump functions bad design.