Gameplay "Profit & Loss"

[medierra]

Figured it might be good to re-post this where others might be able to find it since it was such a length write-up:

There are so many nuances to ARPG design that I could probably write a book about it and there are many factors that I think contribute to the success of Diablo 2.

On the subject of replayability though, there is one sort of high-level factor that I think is a key predictor in determining how much time a given person will likely spend playing and replaying a game. I call it the "profit & loss" ratio and Diablo II has one of the best P&L ratios I've ever experienced.

Basically, the idea goes something like this...

Profit is all the things that are pleasing or enjoyable about playing a game. There are two main categories of profit: fun and reward.

Fun is the immediate, second-to-second feeling of excitement and enjoyment that you have while you're playing. You feel fun right when it is happening but fun is a fleeting feeling that doesn't really stick around once you stop doing whatever was fun. I've seen many instances where people seem to have a ton of fun doing something or playing a game and then after they just never think to go back and play again. You'd think since fun feels so great when its happening that we'd want to keep repeating it but it seems the brain is more interested in reminding us about rewards. Fun is important to keep us playing long enough so that we can experience reward. If people are having fun, they'll sit down for a longer session of gaming but it is the feeling of reward that lingers with us, that our brain wants more of, that keeps us coming back to play again.

A few types of things that generate profit:

Stimulating combat
Exploration / seeing cool things for the first time
Advancing our character
Collecting items and gold
Thinking about creating new / better character builds
Socializing with friends in-game / meeting new people
Beating difficult enemies / difficulty modes
Etc, etc, etc...

Working contrary to all this is loss. Loss is basically tedium, unrewarded effort, frustration and so on. The funny thing about loss in gaming is that it can often come from the smallest things. That extra click to open a UI panel, load times, tedious actions that we must repeat. The worst type of loss is that which is incurred before you encounter profit - everything you need to do before you can start playing. Anyone ever been bored and considered firing up an old game but then thought about the nuisance of reinstalling it or just how long it takes to load up and decided to go do something else?

Over time, eventually profits start to diminish and loss tends gets worse. That really cool thing you saw the first time through is always a little less cool each time you see it. That long load time to get in-game and all those extra, pointless clicks on the UI get more tedious each time. Even some things that may have added to the enjoyment initially can become tedious quickly.

For me, one thing that can become extremely tedious is going back through quests that have lots of small steps. It might be great the first time, hearing each NPC's back-story and perspective, following along and going through the steps to unlock the next part of the story, but once you've done it, if there is no alternative way to play, you already know what is going to happen. Having to run back and forth to hear different NPCs repeat the same lines you've already heard just so you can be assigned a quest that you already know about before you can unlock the gate to move forward becomes quite monotonous.

D2 has a great P&L ratio because it launches quickly, you can be in-game within seconds and once you enter the world, you can just teleport right out into the action without a lot of preparation. You can go from clicking on the executable to killing in like 10 seconds. It is one of the few RPGs where you feel like you can accomplish something meaningful by playing 15mins or less. The combat is fast paced, fun and you can even play semi-effectively while slouched in your chair drunk with only one hand on the mouse should you choose to. The game is a constant stream of slot-machine style reward. There is always another item to get and always another loot chest or enemy at the edge of the screen that might drop something good. You get to make tangible and lasting decisions about the advancement of your character through the allocation of skill and attribute points. You get numerical proof of your increasing power and there is always something you can work at making just a little bit better. Even as you're playing one character, this continual thinking about new builds and gear you discover that would be great for a class other than what you're playing basically lays the foundation for your next replay.

Where D2 is really great is in the way it reduces many of the most common sources of tedium. You generally don't have to talk to NPCs, you can finish Act1 without ever talking to anyone. You can stumble upon and complete quests while out adventuring in the world without having to first talk to NPCs to receive them. Even the towns are small and efficiently designed so there is minimal running around. When you're on your 4937459327523957 play-through of D2, even just the small distance from the portal to the merchant or up to resurrect your mercenary can feel long but think how much shorter it is than most games. A lot of studios seem to want to create these giant towns, which are often initially impressive but can become a source of tedium over time if the few places you routinely need to visit are spaced out by a bunch of useless filler (of course, this isn't necessarily the case in games where gameplay takes place within the towns). Finally, my nemesis, scripted scenes that you're forced to sit through... All these things, when done well, can make for a great initial experience but they tend to reduce replayability over time. Depends what you want in the end, the best initial experience with limited replay value or maximum replayability to keep you coming back time and again.

Anyway, you get the idea. To me, the greatest success of D2 is the profit to loss ratio. There always seems to be more reason to go back and play than not to.

EDIT - Added this post in that was a response to a question below:

The challenge and the frustration that might occur in dying to a boss is not really what I meant by "loss". At least, so long as you understood why you died and knew what you could do to improve.

In this context, frustration can be part of a larger cycle of reward that actually enhances the feeling of reward when it happens. In fact, I remember reading an article that discussed how the supposed purpose of anger was to heighten our focus and motivation to overcome obstacles. So, I think unless you become hopelessly frustrated to the point that you just flip a table over and walk away, this type of frustration can actually motivate us to play more / play more intensely.

The type of loss I'm talking about has no long-term positive effect. For example, in one game I played a while back, it had gold auto-pickup but it was really touchy and you had to get right over the gold and sometimes pause for a second before it would pick up. It was incredibly annoying because picking up gold isn't something you expect to be challenging and the auto-pickup "convenience feature" actually made it worse than having to click on it due to it's inconsistency. When performing mundane tasks in games is more difficult than doing them in real life, there is a problem.

You expect boss fights to be difficult though and if they're done right, when you die, even though you may feel frustration and direct it at the game, inside you're really frustrated with yourself and want to do better.

The Andariel fight in D2 is one of my favorite. It always felt very challenging and intense when you got their early, with a lower-level character because she could kill you pretty quickly if you weren't careful.

[Darkenmal]

Very interesting.

Interesting on how you are trying to outline how you are trying not to get people bored while playing Grim Dawn.

[Roros]

I enjoyed reading this when you first posted it but it got a bit drowned out.

There's a lot I agree with, and I think the 'time between launching the game and killing things' is more important than most realise or admit.
Another thing I feel can be an issue is the entry barrier of having to 'get into' the game and it's mechanics before you can enjoy it again. As an example, I want to play League of Legends right now, I have it installed, it doesn't take that long to launch and get into a match, but what's keeping me out is that I can't quite remember how to play (skill synergies, builds/items, map control metagame, etc), and it will take me a good few rounds to get back into it.

For rpg's this is mostly an issue on loading up an old character, where you have no idea how your build worked, lost track of your items and quest, and have no sense of direction or immediate goals apart from looking at your quest journal and going "this one, I guess..." without any sense of accomplishment beyond clearing it out from your log.


What you say about screen space and mob spacing is really interesting as well, and something I've honestly never considered yet I can see it being completely deliberate and by design, and playing a significant role in the feel and pacing of the game.


The whole Fun vs. Rewarding thing I feel is a bit of blight on gaming these days. I was really into arena shooters before, Unreal Tournament and Quake and such, but that seems like a dead (or niche at the very best) genre these days as most people won't play a shooter (or games in general) unless it has a 'reward' system like perks, unlocks, and levels. I suppose that's also the archetypical MMO in a nutshell - it's not designed to be fun, only rewarding. You're not meant to enjoy it - only to play it over time.

I'm all for rewarding gameplay of course, and it's even one of the primary reasons I enjoy arpg's, but if there's no fun in there it starts feeling like an insidious plot that's designed to scam me into playing, rather than an invitation to enjoy a good game.

Oops, I ranted.

[matthewfarmery]

very interesting reading there and I agree fully with what you said

[Scryer]

I would consider loss as: Any time the player spends inactive (not playing the ‘active game’).

Profit is just as you described it – actions or rewards that directly affect the player.

Tedium increases loss and only adversely affects a player’s overall desire to play the game.

I do consider 'small breaks' where the player looks at the gear they acquired as a benefit though, its part of the reward.

With your definition it’s more beneficial to reduce quest gating where the player is inactive or unable to skip bloated text dialogues and cut-scenes. Sure those devices are cool the first time around but we eventually just want to play the game.

[Josho]

How does a game dev tread the fine line with loot drops? Too frequent and rare/uber loot items lose their wow factor. Too rare and they might as well not exist? This applies to both WYSIWYG and with random loot dropping. In the ARPG, it would count as a dramatic loss if I failed to get respectable gear in a particular time frame. As a secondary question, what defines a suitable timeframe. Does being built around chance create a series of nightmares?

I remember with my first playthrough of Diablo II (even before I knew of the players 8 command) I had no idea for instance that gold unique drops were present. All I ever received during the playthrough, on normal, right up through Act V was magical, unique and set item drops. Even the yellow unique items were exceedingly rare. Keep in mind that as a first time, on normal, boss farming wasn't high on my priority list.

The second great loss with Diablo was the map design. Sure enough, the towns were great. Small brief escapes from the action with minimal walking required to get from Point A to Point B. Well, except the third town in the jungle. And I'll expand upon that and say the third act in terms of map design was clearly the weakest. Too much emphasis on rivers to cordon off areas set into arbitary chokepoints over bridges. Except that a ranged player had a dramatic advantage over a melee focused character. Then there were the expansive dungeons which meant various paths in the initial exploration could lead to long convuluted paths to nowhere. Thirdly with the third act was the little pygmy type guys. Can I say that when playing melee (Paladin or Barb) vs AoE (eg: multi shot Amazon or Frozen Orb Sorc) the difference in effectiveness at taking them down was overtly apparent. The melee required a lot more effort to progress while the AoE breezed along. It created a dyssynchrony when playing online where the melee characters felt completely useless. Oh, and the wormhole in Act II sucked significantly.

While it is true that killing in Diablo II was quick to get to, it would also be hamstrung by what may end up as poor selection of skills. Heck, there were plenty of skills in that game that were not worth putting points into at all.

Of course, based on Medierra's post, I do expect one thing in particular. If the company logo is going to flash up on screen, at the very least let me skip past it immediately upon pressing a key on the keyboard, or mouseclick. Failing that, don't hide the videos in a jumble of folders that require digging through so I can delete them and skip the unrequired loading. This also applies to unskippable video during the game. Primary reason why Assasins Creed (the first) sits in the pile of games partially played and never returned to. The story sucks, just give me the action.

[Thorns]

Where D2 is really great is in the way it reduces many of the most common sources of tedium. You generally don't have to talk to NPCs, you can finish Act1 without ever talking to anyone. You can stumble upon and complete quests while out adventuring in the world without having to first talk to NPCs to receive them. Even the towns are small and efficiently designed so there is minimal running around. When you're on your 4937459327523957 play-through of D2, even just the small distance from the portal to the merchant or up to resurrect your mercenary can feel long but think how much shorter it is than most games. A lot of studios seem to want to create these giant towns, which are often initially impressive but can become a source of tedium over time if the few places you routinely need to visit are spaced out by a bunch of useless filler (of course, this isn't necessarily the case in games where gameplay takes place within the towns). Finally, my nemesis, scripted scenes that you're forced to sit through... All these things, when done well, can make for a great initial experience but they tend to reduce replayability over time. Depends what you want in the end, the best initial experience with limited replay value or maximum replayability to keep you coming back time and again.

Anyway, you get the idea. To me, the greatest success of D2 is the profit to loss ratio. There always seems to be more reason to go back and play than not to.

I read this articles a few days ago which explains how Diablo 3 tries to tell the story without interrupting the flow of the game which you might find interesting medierra. http://hypercriticism.net/2012/diablo-iii-how-stories-should-be-told/

A way to do it which you can have the story evolve without hindering the fun after multiple times could be some quest givers to escort you to the objectives while narrating their story, or the background story of the game. I don't know if followers in Diablo do this, dont have beta, but it sounds viable to me since it doesn't interrupt you from playing. Or something along those lines, I'm just throwing some rough ideas i have here.

[medierra]

/Facepalm

Not sure I had the same experience. I found the forced quest steps to be somewhat disruptive.

[Scryer]

After a long wait, I finally got a chance to play the Beta, one thing I like is the ability to skip over most of the dialog and choose your start point in a quest.

You could start from the beginning each time, but it makes more sense to start just before a major boss.

We'll have to see how this plays out once the game goes live, so far I've found that I'm always killing something unless I stop and listen to someone intentionally.

[Urban Scorpion]

A way to do it which you can have the story evolve without hindering the fun after multiple times could be some quest givers to escort you to the objectives while narrating their story, or the background story of the game.

Please no. Being forced to listen to some blathering blatherskite while making your way to a quest location is not terribly fun, for me at least. Not to mention it raises serious questions.

1. Can the NPC's dialog be skipped/can he be muted? It better be. Little things lower my ability to replay games. Unskippable quest dialog, even if it doesn't hinder my progress, annoys the crap out of me beyond the second run. Yes, I'm easily annoyed.

2. Is the player forced to move at the NPC's pace? Boring and frustrating for people who want action. Becomes exponentially more boring with each playthrough.

3. Is the quest giver invulnerable or somehow invisible to enemies? Breaks immersion, diminishes the weight of the player's struggle. In essence, "Why don't you do it?"

4. Do you have to defend the quest giver? ....

Escort missions...ugh. Talk about frustrating. In my experience, the player is generally forced to listen to some idiot NPC with terrible pathfinding and a scripted lack of common sense scream and cry about how you aren't protecting them from every bruise and scrape while you are fighting off an implausible number of foes that seem to ignore you in pursuit of the squishy. And if he isn't so squishy, it falls into #3 above.


My favorite quests are some in Skyrim. No time pressure and you might already have the item they are looking for. The ability to go explore an area freely, go back to town, and find that you already have completed some major quests without intending to is kinda neat.

[medierra]

I'm pretty much in agreement with you Urban Scorpion.

In the D3 beta when the NPCs escort you to quest objectives, it is through areas with no enemies. So, really, you might as well be forced to stand there listening to their long, drawn out tale, it is the same thing, just disguised by running.

Some people don't mind that sort of thing but, like you, I find it annoying and increasingly so with each play-through.

On the other hand, when you first meet the templar sidekick, he has pieces of dialog he says while you're fighting. I don't mind that since you can just keep fighting and don't have to follow him or lead him anywhere. I think it is also optional whether you invite him to join you or not, whereas in the story quests, you have no choice.

[SoulSeekkor]

I agree with Urban and Medierra, quests with escort portions with far too slow NPCs are simply frustrating. If fighting is involved (and quickly) then I can handle that...but even in Skyrim, as much as I love the game...I want to shoot it when I have to follow that NPC that walks at 1mph from point A to point B a mile away. Doesn't happen often thankfully but when it does it's my least enjoyable part of the game... Hell I don't even mind WoW's collect X items quests compared to that (not that I play anymore).

As much as some decisions they made with D3 turns me off (mainly always online requirement, bleck), I'll most likely give it a try still...but I'm honestly looking forward to Grim Dawn more than D3 or PoE (although still enjoyable).

Soul

[Urban Scorpion]

In the D3 beta when the NPCs escort you to quest objectives, it is through areas with no enemies. So, really, you might as well be forced to stand there listening to their long, drawn out tale, it is the same thing, just disguised by running.

That's just evil. It's a way of tying the player to their chair if they wish to play the game, long before they are allowed to play the game.

Even the tram opening of the original Half-Life wasn't that bad (I could go make a sandwich). But it still kept me from playing the game a second time for a long while. This was before the graphics were considered to be dated.

[TECHNOmancer]

Fascinating stuff. I have to agree that an interactive medium quickly becomes frustrating when it's forced into the mold of a non-interactive one. The last thing I want is for my entertainment to approximate real-life tedium.

TECHNOmancer

[Timobkg]

That's just evil. It's a way of tying the player to their chair if they wish to play the game, long before they are allowed to play the game.

Even the tram opening of the original Half-Life wasn't that bad (I could go make a sandwich). But it still kept me from playing the game a second time for a long while. This was before the graphics were considered to be dated.

Not sure what version of the D3 beta he played, but currently there are 3 cases where you have to go with NPCs, and none of them feel like an escort quest.

1) NPC follows you at your speed, helps you fight enemies. Very short duration.
2) NPC leads you through town to a basement, at your speed, but you're free to follow at your leasure. Inside the basement, NPC follows at your speed. Very short duration.
3) NPC follows you at your speed, helps you fight enemies. This one lasts some time, until you're given the choice to continue with them as a companion (if playing singleplayer).

None feature unskippable dialog that you have to sit through (excluding two very brief in-engine events), and having played through the 2-2.5 hour beta 4-5 times within a week, none of the NPC interactions bothered me as annoying. Some of the voice actors / acting, on the other hand... There are only 3 games where the voice acting bothers me, and the D3 beta is one of them.

[509dave16]

1)Reward and Experience Intertwined
2)World Progression and Immersion
3)Power
Conclusion: Getting Rewarded to gain that Experience

1)
In many games, there is a relationship between the experience and rewards. As the player continues to fight through the world there are enemies(such as in Dark Souls and Demon's Souls) that act as sentries to prevent you from reaching your goal or hinder your efforts to change the world. Building your character up to the point where it is possible to take on these behemoths, is an exciting experience. Finding that next piece of loot or maybe getting that new skill, give you the edge needed to overcome those behemoths.

2)
Whether gaining access to that new region or finding an extraordinary dungeon, entering different places in the world that the player can change and experience produce a sense of accomplishment and awe. You may encounter new challenging enemies to defeat or unique/unexpected npcs that you fall in love with as you follow different questlines or factions.

3)
Having the ability, to stay alive to a make those changes,defeat those enemies, or see that wonderous place in the world is great.Those three things are what drive gaining power. When either one of those is diminished, you feel that your power means nothing: No changes, No challenge, or No jaw dropping sights.

Conclusion: If there are no experiences to be enjoyed after overcoming an obstacle or making a change, what's the point of power. Nothing. So not only do you lose the experience, you also lose the fun of gaining power. The point of the power was to be able go through those experiences. Making sure that the player impacts the world, is challenged by enemies, and is thrilled by new sights and npcs, inspires the player to press onward and reach for as much power as possible. Thus giving the incentive to play through the whole game and in the end say "That was awesome, I want to go back!".

[Doctor]

Exploration / seeing cool things for the first time

That's a very big draw for me. I just love to find stuff, and one other recent game that handled this very well was The Binding of Isaac. I saw new stuff after 10, 20, 40, 60, and even 100 hours.
Some of it came from me unlocking new content, some stuff just happened at random and surprised me when I thought I knew how things went.
That's why I thought an "arcade" mode (http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?p=53776#post53776) in addition to the normal campaign might be cool as an expansion or dlc.

[Grogmonkey]

While it is important to ensure that the player experiences an abundance of 'profit', sometimes it's easy to fall into the trap that the profit must be an active experience; either engaging in combat, or seeing something new, or getting something. Sometimes the best way to portion out the profit is with a generous sprinkling of 'not profit'.

Which isn't to say purposefully add 'loss'. Rather, to add points which aren't necessarily profit, but don't descend into the realms of tedium and disappointment.

The most successful entertainment products utilise peaks and troughs to dictate the emotion (the sense of reward) from their viewers; the troughs setting up the peaks to make them all the more powerful. The risk of focussing purely on 'profit', on rewarding the player and removing as much downtime as possible, is you either create an unsustainable, exponential curve of reward, where each reward must be greater than the last or risk disappointment. Or, even worse than that, you create a plateau of tedium, where, despite the fact you are constantly offering rewards, the fact it's a non-stop supply diminishes the effect until it becomes the norm.

Also, as a seperate issue, sometimes rewards are actually loses in disguise. For instance, a pet peeve of mine with Diablo 2 specifically (and later WoW) was with the loot drops. While I understand a large portion of the design of Diablo was around multiplayer (and to a lesser extent, replay), the fact that while I was playing single player as a specific class loot would drop that I couldn't use was endlessly frustrating.

For unmagical items it was fine, and even magical items wasn't that big of a deal, when it came to the epic and definitely the set drops, seeing something amazing appear which I couldn't actually use was incredibly disappointing. Especially if, as happened to me on one occassion, a second item for that set drops in the same playthrough, without ever seeing an set item that I could use.

The one thing you definitely shouldn't do is 'reward' the player into ditching a character they've put a bunch of time into just because the game seems to be suggesting that you're playing the wrong character!

And because you can quite happily increase the drop rates for class items that are actually currently being played. (Potential imbalances to multiplayer and trading systems/economies notwithstanding.)

[Samsonite]

I think one of the biggest rewards for a game like this is definitely randomized stat overpowered loot farming, especially after several play throughs. In D2 it was the "scratch ticket effect" of Unique's, and in TQ it was the MI's. I even LOVED the broken MI's like Homando's, and was dissapointed when the Fanpatch fixed them. I think Med covered the romance of exploiting game mechanics in his RPS interview, and agree with him totally.
I think the real challenge is to figure out a way to keep "ShopMI" type mods from replicating these items to keep instant gratification urges at bay, keeping the reward value of these items intact.
Making it impossible to import characters from Custom Quests would help this if it is possible.

[garkham]

Very interesting medierra, but I'd add something for the D2 example.

What was for me really fun in TQ contrary to Diablo was the foutain system. I explain. I'm from those who just want to COMPLETELY sweep the shadow on the map and kill all enemies. I want to be able to play 15 min, then save, and play again without being respwan at the same point as my previous launch. Diablo 2 introduces the automatic respawn, I'm not really for this system, but I understand that's the solution for replayability without creating a new game. But when you have to play 3 hours between every "save points", and you have just 15 min to play, you have the choice to : 1. do something useless, or 2. speed up without killing all enemies and find all secrets to find the next town portal. Because of this, I just hated the third act of Diablo 2. Being "obliged" to play a very long time just to reach the next point, bouah !

I'm sorry about that, and I hope the system of frequent fountains of resurrection (not for resurrection, just as saving point) will be kept. :D

[ryunp]

Diablo 2 was frustrating. Bosses were incredibly difficult; when you managed to kill them they rarely dropped worthwhile gear. Simply guiding a character into a misjudged situation surely meant death; the player must always be careful and attentive constantly.

Once enough play time and progression occurred gear would help define the ease of play. It was earned. Rewards - profits, and frustration - loss, were given respectful to time invested. Both entities were smoothly applied as the game evolved. This balance will be difficult to replicate but if there is one group of people who are capable; it definitely looks as if Crate is on the right path.

Make GD as tough as possible. Think back to your first battle against Diablo in Act IV. I'm sick of pansy gameplay these days. I would rather get my ass handed to me; fueling a growth of levels and gear; knowing I will get that son of a bitch back and move on! A solid streak or break of 'loss' is good for the soul.

[medierra]

The challenge and the frustration that might occur in dying to a boss is not really what I meant by "loss". At least, so long as you understood why you died and knew what you could do to improve.

In this context, frustration can be part of a larger cycle of reward that actually enhances the feeling of reward when it happens.

The type of loss I'm talking about has no long-term positive effect. For example, in one game I played a while back, it had gold auto-pickup but it was really touchy and you had to get right over the gold and sometimes pause for a second before it would pick up. It was incredibly annoying because picking up gold isn't something you expect to be challenging and the auto-pickup "convenience feature" actually made it worse than having to click on it due to it's inconsistency. When performing mundane tasks in games is more difficult than doing them in real life, there is a problem.

You expect boss fights to be difficult though and if they're done right, when you die, even though you may feel frustration and direct it at the game, inside you're really frustrated with yourself and want to do better.

The Andariel fight in D2 is one of my favorite. It always felt very challenging and intense when you got their early, with a lower-level character because she could kill you pretty quickly if you weren't careful.

[Roros]

Heh that reminds me of an update they did to Tabula Rasa while I was playing that.

At first it had the classic mmo style looting of corpses where you walk up to it, interact with it, and click to loot it. Most of the time there was just some credits and other resources that didn't take up space in any way.
Eventually they changed it to just dumping the cash in your inventory when the monster died, and some people (certainly not a majority, granted) were OUTRAGED at the game "no longer taking any skill", "a game that plays itself is not fun", and "I guess ncsoft finally supports botting now?". I saw at least one person claiming to have cancelled his sub because of that change alone.

Also (more anecdotes, sorry!), I'm really enjoying Airmech lately, it's a Herzog Zwei clone if anyone is familiar with that, but in a League of Legends format. It's basically an rts where you deploy and command units using your character rather than a cursor. However to issue an order you have to pick up the unit, issue the order, and drop it again. The devs have said this is intended for balance reasons (https://www.carbongames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6275&sid=a87fa8645e93c9b07d4c421d95b79868#p6275) which really put me off the game alltogether. I can totally understand the reasoning, but the means is just microscopic instances of tedium and frustration, or "loss" as I imagine medierra would put it.

[ryunp]

The challenge and the frustration that might occur in dying to a boss is not really what I meant by "loss". At least, so long as you understood why you died and knew what you could do to improve.

In this context, frustration can be part of a larger cycle of reward that actually enhances the feeling of reward when it happens.

...


Ahh. I reread your post and see that you were considering details on a much grander scale. I suppose my thoughts were more of nostalgia than anything. :eek:

There are many critical thoughts about my years of gaming experience that have been considered after reading your post. Fortunately you guys have thought of/had experience with nearly every aspect of game design over the years that my insight is better suited >/dev/null.

I gain excitement each week for the thought of a dark, personal multilayer ARPG experience that isn't another thinly skinned World of Warcraft clone. Hurrah!

[garkham]

Indeed.

For for my personal point of view, I continue to say that the big defect of Diablo II that give me no more interest of replaying it are the far too infrequent "save points". :(

[AndonSage]

I would like to say that some of us enjoy the questing; that we like to learn the lore behind a game. So that's a reward for us. But after the second or third, playthrough, not so much :) So for me, I'd prefer a way to space through conversations, rather than playing a game that doesn't have any conversations.

[Turnip]

A few things I found I liked in diablo 2 that arent in new action rpgs coming out are :

1) Killing is easy, dying is easy too; It seems going 3d they want to minimize the amount of enemies on the screen. So they say they are going for "strategic gameplay", with enemies that kill/die slowly, switching the game to potion/health management. However I dont find making things die slower adds strategy otherwise halo would be more strategic than counter-strike, which it clearly is not.

2) Skills affect a wide area and are spammable, again they want to choke you into mana conservation thinking they can add strategy. Personally I find fun strategy is which way to herd enemies, which to kill first, which way to dodge an attack; not whether I should shoot a fireball or a meteor to conserve my meter.

3) Few skills, I guess this is tough because it is difficult to create spells however there ends up being so few choices.

4) Not making loot look nice, again a resource issue but diablo 2 had cool looking uniques that looked beefy and had a weight to them. I find I'm just looking at stats in these newer games and dont really care about what I use, add some new flesh-esque textures or something at least. Some webbing, something unique to look at is all it needs.


I definitely agree with the points made by the op about quests and stuff, I also think a lot of focus in diablo 2 was put into unique environments as well though. Quests dont matter as much as your going to unique places that look cool, sort of creating your own story as it were. Dont pull a hellgate london, we all know how much that game sucked.

[Roros]

I didn't feel D2 had much incentive to conserve mana or use the lower tier skills once you got to the skill you were saving up for. When playing my sorc I always ended up just spamming a singular room-clearing aoe while chugging mana potions, which ties into how Energy was the most pointless stat and you were basically gimping yourself if you put any points into it.
Part of it was also how it was a bit of a hassle working with just one button for casting skills. Technically 2, but I never liked putting a ranged skill on left mouse as it made moving around in crowds a little awkward.

As much as I love D2 and I'm currently playing it with some friends in hc while waiting for D3, I feel it has a lot of problems, most of which have been addressed in D3 for better or worse.

[Matseb2611]

I 100% agree with the opening post, especially the bit concerning the side quests.
There is another thing I'd like to add (I skimmed a bit through other posts, so if someone said it already, then sorry) is I really hate when I start a game and instead of being head first in action I am forced to play through an annoying tutorial mission. Let me give reasons as to why I hate tutorials.

1) It's a very slow start to the game. I want to get out there and kill things. I don't need the game telling me how to walk, jump, crouch, etc. I can work that stuff out in the first minute of some real playing. In essence, a tutorial treats you like a child. And the worst thing, tutorials in some games can last for anywhere between half hour and one hour, which is more than enough time to put a gamer off it.

2) Tutorials introduce all those hundreds of commands that you need to learn in the game, but once I start the real mission, I cannot simply remember them all. It's like a massive information dump and they expect you to remember it all. Why not introduce it all bit by bit as I go through the game? That way you are not overwhelmed and can actually remember how to perform a certain command.

3) When I want to replay the game, I don't need to play through the tutorial mission again, yet some games insist on you going through it every single time you start a new playthrough.

[Xamitxx]

i think that the game should have some of the following:
1. many option on quests, thing you can kill, betray, doing some quests wich unlock or block others. and ofcourse with each different quest a different reward that will have impact on you.
2. making dungeons, caves, secret places and passeges randomized.
(unlike T.Q that we all knew exaclly where to go, and we had the same feeling of "deja vu") - and in each different mini bossess that could spawn.
3. making lots of posibilities with your build, dont make a "magican" only cast magics, open it up for melee attacks or bows, or any other weapon, this way you could mix up an archer-mage char, a battlemage.
the thing is i know its a titan quest engine, but the flaw with titan quest was that there are not alot of diverse builds that will succeed on the harder levels of the game even though it apears that the posibilties are limitless. (in the end titan quest gave us almost the same gameplay with most chars just spam your spell, so it really dosent matter if you picked dream,earth,spirit.. you get the point)
sorry for bad english.

[nolnacs]

Great post and it is really important. I've been thinking about this quite a bit over the past couple of weeks as I have been playing my way through TQ. I picked it up after hearing about Grim Dawn and becoming a backer.

Anyway, what drives me absolutely crazy about TQ is that I struggle with the bosses. I tend to die quite a bit against some of them (others are really easy due to my build) and the length of time that it takes me to walk back to the boss is so frustrating. After I have made that minute and a half long walk 10 times against one boss with instakill (I'm talking about you Barmanu/Manticore), I become sick of playing the game and I just want to quit.

I don't mind having difficult boss battles or dying, but the tedious walking back to the battle just to die again in 10 seconds is aggravating. Actually, walking in general is aggravating. Arcanum for all of its flaws was a big offender in my opinion with the giant towns.

Anyway, maybe it was made that way to prevent boss farming but for a person who just wants to play the game through it is frustrating.

Didn't mean to turn this into such a rant... looking forward to GD

[Droppz]

Diablo 2 are certainly a good game, but you shouldn't worry much about it, I liked Titan Quest even with it's flaws over Diablo. I imagine alot of fans think the same or why else would they play it right?

Speaking for myself i want "Titan Quest 2" a game that expands on the first one but adds new cool stuff.

I do not want much to change really. You already made alot of stuff better over orginal TQ, but i wouldn't want it to turn into Torchlight or Diablo 3.

[DrKrunkenstein]

I have to agree, honestly. Diablo 2 is, in my opinion, the best ARPG there is. Its simply the best example of a combination of elements that nuance and accentuate each other.

I've been playing the Torchlight 2 beta, Diablo 2, and TQ recently, as well as some Diablo 3. Even in the face of these new shiny ARPGs, Diablo 2 still holds up extremely well.

One of the single greatest failures of Torchlight is their item progression, which is surprising to me since Diablo 2 had it down perfectly. The progression of base gear stats was easy to understand, visually identifiable, and statistically coherent to a predictable structure. In Diablo 2, there was a sense of what items you should have when. Off the top of my head I know that the armor progression goes - Quilted, Leather, Hard Leather, Studded Leather, Ringmail, Chain Mail/Breast Plate, Splint Mail - which is Acts 1 through 2. Torchlight devolved into item soup, where the numbers had no meaning to them, and gear had no predictable structure.

Titan Quest's gear progression is now in the quiet category of ARPGs that didn't break that structure, and thank you for that. Its an aspect that honestly doesn't get enough attention in the ARPG. The gear metagame has largely been abandoned in a lot of ARPGs, which is sad as its a layer of complexity and character development that was a big part of the ARPG. If there's one thing I hope for from Grim Dawn, its that it maintains a gear progression structure like TQ and Diablo 2 did.

[Wingflier]

Great article, thank you.

[Santa]

Originally D3 was going to be made more like D2/TQIT mix and self hosted......

Then they dropped the bomb shell.... Due to it taking SO damn long to develop new game systems came into being and they migrated it to online server only :furious:!!

Since that time I dumped my pre-order! I was SO looking forward to D3 but that really ruined it for me!

Now they are implementing a items shop for real money where people can trade items they want for cash! Minus the devs cut!

Many online games have turned into CASH COWS where making money is more important than fun/enjoyment. Its a shame.

Just look at the plethora of "free games" that end up costing a fortune!

That's why I loved TQ/ITs method of hosting a game through a lobby ... you could password it for buddies or BOOT annoying players! Even with online only games, how many people can you really play with at one time? Sure there can be thousands online but you wont really be able to play with them all! There will always be a spot for games like GD and TQIT.. just go look in the lobby on a weekend.. still LOTS playing!

TQ/IT was the greatest game of its type at the time. It even allowed you to learn HOW it was made through the toolset for mods etc! How fantastic is that? I feel TQIT was so great because of the modding it allowed! Just have a look at some of the great stuff that players came up with :D (Myself included heehee).

More importantly, games you host yourself only cost you the GAME.... no annoying adds prompting you to buy the current "special offer" trying to suck your money.

[Rolo42]

TQ/IT was the greatest game of its type at the time.
I think it still is.

[Capn Tucker]

I think it still is.

Have to agree. TQ for me was (and is) far superior to Diablo. Graphically and gameplay. I much preferred the story as well. I love mythology, and the mythologies of Ancient Greece and Egypt with all their great stories and fantastic creatures was infinitely more interesting to me than the Prime Evils.
The only thing I disliked was the non-random levels.
Grim Dawn promises to address this issue with it's partial randomization, and even if everything else is identical to Titan Quest I'll still be a happy camper.
And the devs have said they will improving lots of other stuff too, so an improved Titan Quest will be better still than the big red guy.. :)

[Rolo42]

Exactly; I thought the mythology was one of the coolest things, brilliant.

Can't compare graphics though since they are from two different eras. Blizz definitely dropped the ball in all they had to do was make "more Diablo, only better" every year for the past 12 rather than playing catch-up now. ("A good plan today is better than the perfect plan tomorrow." -Patton)

So...more TQ....only better! (TQ guts with a new world will be sweet)

[ZiggyD]

Ah, I love reading game design thought processes like this. For me a huge part of the profit is coming to understand the synergies between skills and how I can use them.

[RoTaN]

Great post, I am glad I supported Crate :)

As for D1/D2 - I would love if they updated them graphically, one of my favorite games of all time. Same goes for FF7.

[Kibou]

@medierra: In regard to profit/loss, how would you describe the useless middle difficulty? Because I think if you use theoretical approaches like this one, it really shows that it's merely a well-established design flaw.

I'll do it for normal and Hell/Legendary:

On normal, you always get a fresh, new experience, either because you see the content for the first time, or because you use a new hero / combination of skills. The main "carrot" is leveling up your character to the point where he has access to all the skills you want.

On Hell/Legendary, you get a meaningful challenge - since it's the toughest stuff the game has to offer, it means something if you beat it. The main carrot is that you are finally able to find the best loot, items that aren't merely temporarily.

[Fewt]

In the alpha (of GrimDawn ofcourse) the last bossfight is in a small room. It is exciting, however due to the current policy that your portal remains after your death, a great portion of the excitement is being taken away.

This is exactly what you talked about in your opening post. There is profit but also loss. In my opinion you should: remove the ability of the portal to remain after death (atleast in close range), or add something to the room which makes it more of a challenge.


About Diablo II :
Anyway what I liked about Diablo II was not only its excellent design but the endless re playability it provided with it's random levels and loot that everyone could pick up. This generated a feeling of competitiveness and excitement I haven't seen in a lot of other similar games.

It provided an edge on multilayer other then playing together with someone, you had to actually compete with someone.

EDIT: My vision on towns.

I don't agree completly, large full towns can be a thing to behold and admire. However Diablo II had the efficient system of were the essentials are.

When you joined or died you would spawn in the most ideal location in the town close to the portals and waypoints and also the exit. This made the game a fast paced one. Towns can be large in my opinion but if the essentials like main quest npc's, portal locations, way points and spawn location are in close vicinity it will be alright.

[ibugsy]

In the alpha (of GrimDawn ofcourse) the last bossfight is in a small room. It is exciting, however due to the current policy that your portal remains after your death, a great portion of the excitement is being taken away.

Pull him into the bigger room that is before his room. That works nicely!

[Kibou]

One thing I'd like to mention in regard to Diablo is that for me and my friends, the most addictive Diablo game so far was Diablo I, not Diablo II.

We played Diablo for several months, even though there was nothing to do but to play through the first few levels of Hell, up to that room with Lazarus and the two other special monsters and repeat, always hoping to find some nice items.

When Diablo II came, we where quite impressed by all the improvements and new features it had, and by the sheer size of it. We liked the game a lot when we played it, but nonetheless we stopped playing rather quickly. I did one playthrough on normal, played around with a few other classes a bit and that's it. I think one of my friends played through most of Nightmare difficulty, maybe he even finished it, but none of us ever finished a Hell playthrough. I bought the expansion, but the first time I actually played through it was a few years ago when I re-discovered the game as a title for coop play with my girlfriend.

I've always wondered why Diablo II turned out to be so much less addictive, even though it seemed like a much better game. I believe it's pretty much related to the "carrot", or profit & loss in the thread's terminology.

In Diablo, the carrot was right there, as real and tangible as can be, right in front of us. At the time we played it, each of us would have been able to list the items he was looking for from memory - even today, I still recall the godly full-plate mail of the whale and the King's Sword of Haste. Each time we went into Hell to fight Lazarus, we knew we had a tiny chance to find one of those. When I was able to upgrade my sacred whatever mail of something to an awesome something, I could clearly see the step towards my desired perfect set of gear. None of us ever found even one of those perfect pieces, but that didn't matter.

In Diablo II, there where so many different items and types of items that none of us really saw through them and figured out what his personal perfect set was. And none of us ever had a chance to find such an item, anyways, because we'd have had to play all the way to the end of Hell difficulty for that, and none of us ever did that. The carrot always remained vague, foggy and far, far away.


I am aware, of course, that a lot of Diablo II fans have actually played all the way through all difficulties with several characters, but I've never known one of them. I guess those people are a certain type of hardcore players who focus on just one game for a very long time. However, that's not an approach that works for me.

[Azariah]

I myself and a supporter of D3. I think that the game is fun for that sort of instant gratification that you were talking about, its fun to jump into the game and kill some enemies with some really cool looking spells. But as for spending countless hours grinding for gear. the game didnt make it for me, the only reason i played it untill level 60 is because i like REALLY REALLY REALLY hard games. And when they released the monster power idea i practically cried in joy. I would always pump it up all of the way and play the crazy difficult levels. Thats just fun to me and the main thing i liked about it was that its not forced on you. Its actually something you dont notice until you look in the menu for it. So i would really hope if GD used something like that. Maybe even just a checkbox for a extra hard difficulty.

(sense someone is going to say this)
No the difficulty progression in TQ is not the same thing. If you play through a second time on the harder difficulty. its just like a continuance of the story at least thats how i feel. I want it to be extra hard from the very start.

[Grimsky McDawnfish]

Hi-

I have a number of notes re: alpha that i may just keep to myself after reading this. it is your alls game and it seems like you are moving to address 'loss' so..let's see what you do.

a couple things did come to mind for me after reading. First is the combat animations (not skill animations), especially for melee characters. It would be nice to see new moves unlock as you progress. Too much to ask for perhaps, but for me, another form of repetition that gets stale.

the next is similar and that is static maps. i have to say that i do enjoy your maps but i know that at some point I will know them very well and i also know that simply redrawing them is not the solution. sub maps that don't always spawn, monsters that don't always spawn, even backgrounds/structures just to look at that don't always spawn could help to keep it fresher, longer.

[Amnesia82]

I agree with almost everything you just said, im kinda tipsy right now and dont really remember what i didnt agree on but it was some small part of one of the major things you said so in general i agreed 100% ha ha.

Love GD so far and as long as you keep the underdog dark thrashy, im fucked feeling about the game im with you always.

[Italofoca]

That's very clever way of seem things !

Some features can be either profit or loss depending on the player. For some people people long NPC talks makes the game more immersive but for many it is just 'less time killing stuff'. I think one thing developers should do is recognize the kind of people they want to please and base their decisions based on this abstract "average target player population".

Personally I think the biggest profit source in D2 was the non-linear game play elements. They don't care that every single element of the game meant the same for every kind of character. Some character ignore mana potions, others drink 10 per second. Some character use tons of gems, other search for NPC sold wands with +3 skills. Some bosses are ridiculous to some characters (Duriel vs. Sorc) and normal to others. Some classes needs more equipament then others, some do craft, some gamble for rares, etc...

I mean, the game is not made with some isometry between all classes in mind. They just made the mechanics in a way that made sense for then without looking into a universal "fairness".

The result is that every class and build feels like a different game. In all ARPG past D2/TQ, playing and mastering one class means you've mastered the game. I never build a monk in D3, but the fact that i have learned barbs and WD means i can probably make one and finish the game on HC until Inferno on my next shot. Compare it to D2. If I grab a build i never did before (let's say, Ghost Assassin), i have no freaking idea how to play it and probably gonna die on nightmare.

The mechanics in D2 and TQ are very dense. There so many nuances and because of that there's many things to learn.

Most modern games tries to "standardize" things. The mechanics are so rational and symmetric that the game feels like the same for all characters you do (because it essentially is).

ARPG designers have to understand point and click gameplay IS SHADOLLOW and theres little to be done before changing the game into God of War. The game is not about playing it. It's not super fun and people gets tired fast (of the gameplay element). ARPG is about puzzles in form of character sheet, enemies and all those variables. It's about building character and the fact that every new build is a new challenge, were old variables have new meaning.

[Fewt]

That's very clever way of seem things !

ARPG designers have to understand point and click gameplay IS SHADOLLOW and theres little to be done before changing the game into God of War. The game is not about playing it. It's not super fun and people gets tired fast (of the gameplay element). ARPG is about puzzles in form of character sheet, enemies and all those variables. It's about building character and the fact that every new build is a new challenge, were old variables have new meaning.

About that ARPG thing, I agree. What Diablo 3 did to lose it's "edge" is when they removed the ability to customize your character further than assigning skills. Diablo 2 and this game give you the option to customize the way you want it. You can put everything in strength and be done with it. It's your choice. And this I like very much.

[semmelbroesel]

@medierra:
Excellent thoughts there, and a lot of great insight!

Wanted to add my 2cents about one type of loss that bugs me majorly about some games:

Not being able to stop an intro video - be it with a setting to prevent it from coming up in the first place and/or hitting the mouse/space/ESC key to stop it.

That's a thing I don't understand about a lot of games - if we don't want to watch it, why make us players annoyed by forcing us to watch?

*hint* I hope GD won't have this problem :D
(Unfortunately I'll only find out when beta starts...)

[ibugsy]

Not being able to stop an intro video - be it with a setting to prevent it from coming up in the first place and/or hitting the mouse/space/ESC key to stop it.

That's a thing I don't understand about a lot of games - if we don't want to watch it, why make us players annoyed by forcing us to watch?

I don't like having to re-watch an intro video unless I want to either. I've noticed with a lot of games if you press the mouse button, or a keyboard key, the video will stop and let you into the game. Other ways, pressing ESC. TQ was like this, so I imagine that GD would be the same as well.

Also, some games have an option to disable intro videos. Usually this is accessed via ESC, or the main game menu as Options or Settings.

[GrandAdmiralThrawn]

Not being able to stop an intro video - be it with a setting to prevent it from coming up in the first place and/or hitting the mouse/space/ESC key to stop it.

That's a thing I don't understand about a lot of games - if we don't want to watch it, why make us players annoyed by forcing us to watch?
The answer most likely is "money". They force you to watch logos of hardware partners (nVidia, AMD, Intel,..) and logos of the publisher etc.. If they're going to invest money in a game (in whatever form), they'd wanna make sure they at least get some logo placement in the intro that everybody has to watch? ;)

[DeMasked]

I'm fine if they force you to watch everything the first time. Second time obviously should allow skipping.

D3 was really annoying in that their are constantly cut scenes going on that you have to constantly skip. At least GD won't be like that.

[medierra]

@medierra:
Excellent thoughts there, and a lot of great insight!

Wanted to add my 2cents about one type of loss that bugs me majorly about some games:

Not being able to stop an intro video - be it with a setting to prevent it from coming up in the first place and/or hitting the mouse/space/ESC key to stop it.

That's a thing I don't understand about a lot of games - if we don't want to watch it, why make us players annoyed by forcing us to watch?

*hint* I hope GD won't have this problem :D
(Unfortunately I'll only find out when beta starts...)

This will probably sound as stupid to you as it always has to me but the main reason I've encountered is that the people who paid for / created the videos want to be sure that their investment / effort was worthwhile and that people are going to watch it. They want to make sure no one misses it, they think it is cool and don't understand why someone wouldn't want to keep watching it or what it is like to be on the other side, as the player, frantically hitting ESC every time you launch the game to skip it.

I actually had to specifically argue to make sure people would be able to hit a key to skip all that stuff on TQ after the first time. If we had time, I'd probably want to do something where it only played the first time and then never again but there would be some place in the game where you could elect to watch it again if you wanted.

[Shoganai]

This will probably sound as stupid to you as it always has to me but the main reason I've encountered is that the people who paid for / created the videos want to be sure that their investment / effort was worthwhile and that people are going to watch it. They want to make sure no one misses it, they think it is cool and don't understand why someone wouldn't want to keep watching it or what it is like to be on the other side, as the player, frantically hitting ESC every time you launch the game to skip it.

I actually had to specifically argue to make sure people would be able to hit a key to skip all that stuff on TQ after the first time. If we had time, I'd probably want to do something where it only played the first time and then never again but there would be some place in the game where you could elect to watch it again if you wanted.

Yeah, I like to watch the cinematics ONCE, and then I usually skip them. A simple tap on the ESC key works well (please, no prompt asking me if I "want" to skip the video... I hit the ESC key right?). Having an option to skip all cinematics after their first viewing would be great as well.

I'd not like to see it where all cinematics are automatically skipped though once viewed once... because there are some cinematics that I will watch every time I come across them :P

[DeMasked]

Ah so like Diablo 2 act cinematic videos which you only see once if going to the next act yet still having the ability to check the cinematic again as an option.

Yea I'd be down for that. Might have to make it rather obvious if that option would have all cinematic clips of the game (if their will be many) as people might be a bit miffed if they only see the intro once and "can't" see it again.