10 Jul 2013

Game Design: Unnecessary stuffing

There are a lot of game types and environments you can design for. When you say "game design" a lot of people will imagine "video games" - a PC, console, handheld or another electronic device targeted games.
There is a lot more to the game design than that. Before the first electrons were fired in the laboratory, there were board games and life action games. They had grown up a lot lately and are actually heavily influencing each other - but that is a different story. The games and their stories are talking about the core of it all - as a game designer, you should listen.

For example: Did you ever heard of L.A.R.P. events? The name stands for Life Action Role Playing and it was basically invented with the table top RPG's like Dungeons and Dragons and Shadowrun - by the players who wanted to experience the setting in person. The LARP games are currently played by thousands of players over the world in events in range from a few people in a bar to a massive battles of thousands of people. Designers of those games ran into a lot of problems that could teach us a lot about the PC and other games as well. My personal experience is nothing short of fresh. Just a few weeks ago it was my second game in a role of a game designer for one of these LARP games...

The game "Zlenice" is well known in the community and has a 15 years of tradition. It is a "world" type of game where people can assume different professions and roles within a society, fight the monsters and complete (or fumble) different quests and uncover mysteries of the world. There are six professions within a game that players can pick from. Five years ago, I picked one that almost no-one ever played, an "alchemist". I wondered why. With the well prepared system, there were no potions or artifacts on the market and only person carrying its billy-can around was a person who was teaching the profession. I soon learned why.

In the three years as an alchemist player, I collected as much diverse resources as I could. I hunted every recipe that was available... It wasn't easy, especially if I didn't exactly had much money to begin with and as a non-combat character I had limited options of interaction. I got some money by selling information and providing people to solve someone else problems. My "shadow broker" business got me some real funds so I could amass more resources for desired potion business. With all my wealth I was actually able to make six of those potions and sold four of them (and a promise I wont make a cure, for the poison sold). At that point, I was one of the most influential persons in game. I had my own organization handling everything from trade and banking services to "accidents" and I was basically running the whole monetary system in the game. Just before my fourth year in the game (it was 2012), my master decided to leave the post and abandon her place among the organization team - and asked me to take her role. I accepted.

As I looked back and thought about those three wonderful years I realized I could have been a rogue, wizard or even warrior and it would not made any difference. I didn't played or used my role at all. Over the three years, I made six potions that had basically no effect on the environment of the game. Six! It was ridiculous when you consider, that it was pretty much all my profession could do. I recalled that there were others trying to play alchemist over those years - all of them gave up. I summed up all of my alchemist experience and decided to make radical changes.

The whole system was created by an enthusiast. The system was complicated and created a good simulation of what alchemist do. The formulas were exact and precise, the sources of the material diverse and there was a huge list of resources. All of those things weren't wrong. They wasn't even badly designed. The source of the problem was more concealed. The potions were weak for their price, the resources were extremely hard to get and with the complicated formulas - a lot of different resources was needed. Those were balance problems and kept the alchemist down. Right? No, not really. It was a concept problem.
The whole system was about what alchemist DO, not what he/she hopes to ACHIEVE.
People playing the alchemist gave up, because they felt that their work has no purpose. Their effort was simply not worth the results. It did not matter that it was fun to do. So, first year I had it in my hands, I made a re-balance on the strength of the potions and cut the costs. Four new people tried to play, survived to the end and did not gave up. I watched them closely what are they doing, when and why and how it affect their experience. I talked to them in the evenings between the game days and started to have even more precise idea on what is the problem. After the game I had a year to think and redesign the system.

I realized the whole focus of the rules and system of alchemy was on what happens before the potion is made. There was a whole world of gameplay there. I decided to change that. My base idea was that people came here to mix potions, sell them to people, give them to allies or use them themselves. i.e. to play with the results of their work. So I sat behind the desk, put the rules in front of me and thought - what was the most time consuming thing over preparing the potions?
It was clearly the gathering of different resources that allowed you to make those potions. So, I started to trim the system. From 4 energy types only one was left. From dozens of resources of different kinds and origins - only four was left. Now all of those different potions could be done by just mixing these four "elements" in different quantities and you could get these four from basically anywhere. I cancelled the exact step by step formulas (no longer mix two times clockwise, tap on the edge of the billy-can and add second ingredient) and more. I wasn't only cutting though. I wanted to focus on "what to do with a potion ready" so I made a lot of new potion types to make the range much broader and added a way to discover new hidden potion recipes and such.

It could be seen as a dumbification of the system. It was much easier to become an alchemist, to get resources you need and to actually make something. Truth is - it was a dumbification. A huge one. But on the part that was not essential, necessary and core element of the game. Wait what? Getting resources and mixing potions was non-essential for alchemist? Yes it was.
People did not come to spend their time wandering through the forests alone, looking for the plants, persuading dryads to give them some of their hair, and trying to locate the gem mines. Those people came to make potions and play with them. Their wish was to use those things. The old system not only made that a minor part of their game, but also cut them off from the rest of their party as picking flowers wasn't exactly something warriors wanted to watch for too long.

My old master would probably be worried if those poor people will actually have something to do.
I myself had the feeling that problem might be in the passive role of the alchemist more than the whole potions business - so I made a new archetype (every profession have several ways to build them called archetypes) that actually picked up a sword and went fighting with the rest of the professions. It was even profiled as wildly popular "witcher" - the most badass monster slayers the literature ever produced. This year I could see the results of my changes.

Over twenty alchemists registered and seventeen actually came. That is over three times more than my first year and twice as much as people who actually tried to be alchemist in the four years before that - combined. And here's the kicker - only three of them came to play the new active archetype! It was much more than I ever expected. They played the game, made dozens of potions and had a real impact on the game - and they all had fun (according to the feedback). Some of them even expressed the regret that this years game had already ended and wanted back. As I watched my alchemists play I realized that some of them are actually giving their potions away for free - even though they actually spend several hours getting those ready.

So what is the message of the story? The troubles of the old system made me re-evaluate what is important in the game. It helped me think about how to define what is the core and the source of fun and what is just a stuffing. It helped me to understand how players expectation will affect his experience.

Think on what is the core of the fun in your game, what people expect to do and what is keeping them from it. Than cut that stuff short.

For more examples on the systems and their shortcomings:

Cooperation with the other players or a conflict with them is a core mechanism of every multiplayer game. So things that keeps you away from them should be bonus objectives, never the base of your gameplay. For example SW: The old republic has great story line and single-player experience. Which is why people treat it as such. You play through the storyline and when you reach the end, you start a new character or stop playing the game. Bad model of behaviour for subscription and micro-transaction based games. What would help the TOR would be a real end game content. Players spend this whole time getting to know their characters and abilities and upgrading their gear just to find out they have nothing to do with it in the end. Adding new levels won't solve the base of the problem, just delay it for a tiny bit. In a story about huge war adding end game content would mean adding big pvp stuff to fight for - like guildwars2 or warhammer have.

In a game, it is super important on what player expects to do. If it is a war game, you might want to focus on the battle more than the economic part of the game. Making, maintaining and caring for units should not take more time than actually using them to kick each others butt. For example - in a Star Craft (and lot of other RTS), every multiplayer session starts with a farming session followed by a short battle. Units are expensive, the economics takes long to build and it is fragile. When you look at it, most modern RTS are actually economic simulators more, than battle simulators. Everyone is afraid to fight because picking a wrong time and target is a problem and replacing what was destroyed can be impossible - the game in a multiplayer session is unforgiving. Maybe a bit too much. The Riot games with their League of Legends is facing the same problem. It takes a lot of confidence to go aggressive and take a huge risks. Most people are afraid to fight because one mistake means they can loose the fight and snowball effect in the game can be super harsh creating for one side the spiral of doom (check out my previous blog post on that topic). And those are super frustrating. Riot decided to weaken the effect of potions because they felt that people don't fight because opponent can just heal up. As a result, players became even more passive as the fear of their own possible mistake and harder recovery was preventing them from engaging in. The fear of loss is stronger than desire for more as was proven by the Laurie Santos and her Comparative Cognition Laboratory (CapLab) at Yale...

Oh yes, those are big and successful games! However... there is always something you can do to make your game even better.

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