Yeah. So let me grind (not choose levels - walk in) or not grind (choose levels - walk out).
You would have that choice ONLY IF the game let you choose levels for characters.
Oddly, Star Trek online has a pretty simple solution for this.
Say, I've been playing for a while, and I'm level 50. And say Axel and Rym come in, Axel has been playing for a few weeks, he's about level 25, and Rym is level one, straight outta compton the tutorial. Axel wants to play a game with Rym and I, so we party up together. Rym and I tick boxes that say "Match party leader's level." It doesn't take anything from me, and it gives me the same level of items and experience, but it also scales down my effect on enemies to match someone at level 25 with the same gear or equivalent. For Rym, it scales all of his gear up, and gives him a bit of an experience boost, but doesn't give him stuff he can't really use. And Axel gets everything appropriate to his level.
The only quibble I've noted so far is that it is kinda possible to match level with someone who is at such a low level that even with everything throttled back, unless they remove certain things, you still have somewhat of an advantage, because the newer players don't have access to the necessary skills or parts of the game yet, and thus the enemies you encounter are not built to counter any of the higher tier skills you might have. And there are areas of the game where it's very hard to play if you're not above a certain level, because they're optimized for certain levels of play - but the game does a good job at keeping you out of most of those not with force, but coercion, mostly by giving you a clear path of things to do, and a number of level-appropriate activities that you can get in on.
Guild Wars 2 has a similar system; basically, players are scaled down when they enter lower level areas, or scaled up in the massive PvP areas.
Interestingly, PVP doesn't work that way in STO, only the main game works that way. PVP only happens in designated instances, which have a completely different system in place to regular STO play. It gets crazy competitive in there - Nine and I are a two-man wrecking crew in STO, but but the two of us against even just a mid tier PVP player, and we'll get demolished.
That said, Guild Wars 2 is another example of that system being implemented at least pretty well, though not perfectly.
That makes sense in a game that uses an MMO model.
In the Subscription/MMO model, the game requires you to invest specific time to do specific things. Things are gated behind bars and you need to spend x hours doing y thing to get to the thing you want. Loot can't be gotten anywhere, certain enemies drop certain loot. Those enemies are in certain areas. Those areas are only accessed after you do x, which (etc.). This requires hours of work. This means you have to set aside X time. Just playing for X amount of time each day doesn't necessarily work, because you also HAVE to group up for dungeons and that means you have to coordinate with others and set aside the time required to complete the specific tasks. In this case, alleviating that burden is useful, especially if the game has a subscription fee and you need/want to accomplish something in that limited time.
In something like Borderlands, you can play for 20 minutes each day and eventually get everything other people have. You don't need to organize or coordinate or whatnot because basically every item in the game can be dropped randomly from anything at any time. The game is all about what you choose to put into it, rather than forcing you to put in certain amounts of time in certain areas.
I only play to "win" like you describe in orthogames.
Borderlands is not an orthogame in any meaningful sense. It's not even an idiogame really. It's effectively a single player game with a co-op option. It's an... autogame? Terminology doesn't matter at this level, but the point remains. Borderlands is not a competitive game. It is not an orthogame.
By your logic, having "normal" and "hard" mode options in Megaman 2 is broken, because smart players will ALWAYS choose normal.
Guild Wars 2 has a similar system; basically, players are scaled down when they enter lower level areas, or scaled up in the massive PvP areas.
Interestingly, PVP doesn't work that way in STO, only the main game works that way. PVP only happens in designated instances, which have a completely different system in place to regular STO play. It gets crazy competitive in there - Nine and I are a two-man wrecking crew in STO, but but the two of us against even just a mid tier PVP player, and we'll get demolished.
That said, Guild Wars 2 is another example of that system being implemented at least pretty well, though not perfectly.
I never got into it, but Guild Wars 2 has a pretty good PvP system.
There are two PvP modes; one of them, SPvP, is actually an entirely separate game mode where everyone instantly gets maximum level and maximum gear; combat occurs in discrete instances with capture point based scoring objectives.
The other one has massive (100+ player) maps with siege weapons, resources, and supply lines; everyone is scaled up to the maximum level, although a true level 80 definitely has significant advantages over a scaled 80 due to skill trees and gear.
I only play to "win" like you describe in orthogames.
Borderlands is not an orthogame in any meaningful sense. It's not even an idiogame really. It's effectively a single player game with a co-op option. It's an... autogame? Terminology doesn't matter at this level, but the point remains. Borderlands is not a competitive game. It is not an orthogame.
By your logic, having "normal" and "hard" mode options in Megaman 2 is broken, because smart players will ALWAYS choose normal.
If their utility is to win, yes.
But Mega Man 2 has much, much, MUCH different utility than Borderlands, especially in the modern day perspective. Playing Mega Man 2 nowadays has one of a few purposes: 1. Nostalgia. Winning/losing is mostly unimportant at this point, so either difficulty makes sense. 2. Showing off that you can win. In this case, playing on Normal means people might not care as much, so you need to play on Hard to garner people's attention/appreciation. 3. Learning why people liked it in the first place. Either difficulty is viable, because it depends on what the experience you're seeking to replicate is. I could go on, but your comparison fails to recognize the ultimate point of my argument.
Can you lose in Borderlands, if so what do you lose?
No, you can't honestly lose. If you die, you lose money to respawn. Money is a barely useful resource to be honest, mostly unnecessary. So no, you can't lose.
Nothing obviously. But action games and rpgs are different things for different people and mindsets and asking why rpg is not an action game is kinda silly, I think.
But Mega Man 2 has much, much, MUCH different utility than Borderlands, especially in the modern day perspective. Playing Mega Man 2 nowadays has one of a few purposes: 1. Nostalgia. Winning/losing is mostly unimportant at this point, so either difficulty makes sense. 2. Showing off that you can win. In this case, playing on Normal means people might not care as much, so you need to play on Hard to garner people's attention/appreciation. 3. Learning why people liked it in the first place. Either difficulty is viable, because it depends on what the experience you're seeking to replicate is. I could go on, but your comparison fails to recognize the ultimate point of my argument.
Is that really true? When it first came out, did people play it for nostalgia or historic purposes? If not, why would anyone play it on hard mode?
I only play to "win" like you describe in orthogames.
Borderlands is not an orthogame in any meaningful sense. It's not even an idiogame really. It's effectively a single player game with a co-op option. It's an... autogame? Terminology doesn't matter at this level, but the point remains. Borderlands is not a competitive game. It is not an orthogame.
By your logic, having "normal" and "hard" mode options in Megaman 2 is broken, because smart players will ALWAYS choose normal.
If their utility is to win, yes.
But Mega Man 2 has much, much, MUCH different utility than Borderlands, especially in the modern day perspective. Playing Mega Man 2 nowadays has one of a few purposes: 1. Nostalgia. Winning/losing is mostly unimportant at this point, so either difficulty makes sense. 2. Showing off that you can win. In this case, playing on Normal means people might not care as much, so you need to play on Hard to garner people's attention/appreciation. 3. Learning why people liked it in the first place. Either difficulty is viable, because it depends on what the experience you're seeking to replicate is. I could go on, but your comparison fails to recognize the ultimate point of my argument.
Your utility in Borderlands is to have the experience of gradual character power advancement via changing loot; that is not the same thing as your utility being to get the best loot as quickly as possible.
If you choose to go for (2) instead of (1), you're the one making a mistake by making a decision that is clearly suboptimal according to your real utility function. In short,
If maximising your utility function results in bad outcomes, you're using the wrong utility function.
But Mega Man 2 has much, much, MUCH different utility than Borderlands, especially in the modern day perspective. Playing Mega Man 2 nowadays has one of a few purposes: 1. Nostalgia. Winning/losing is mostly unimportant at this point, so either difficulty makes sense. 2. Showing off that you can win. In this case, playing on Normal means people might not care as much, so you need to play on Hard to garner people's attention/appreciation. 3. Learning why people liked it in the first place. Either difficulty is viable, because it depends on what the experience you're seeking to replicate is. I could go on, but your comparison fails to recognize the ultimate point of my argument.
Is that really true? When it first came out, did people play it for nostalgia or historic purposes? If not, why would anyone play it on hard mode?
Well, in Japan there was no difficulty selection. It was just hard mode. In the US they added the baby mode.
But Mega Man 2 has much, much, MUCH different utility than Borderlands, especially in the modern day perspective. Playing Mega Man 2 nowadays has one of a few purposes: 1. Nostalgia. Winning/losing is mostly unimportant at this point, so either difficulty makes sense. 2. Showing off that you can win. In this case, playing on Normal means people might not care as much, so you need to play on Hard to garner people's attention/appreciation. 3. Learning why people liked it in the first place. Either difficulty is viable, because it depends on what the experience you're seeking to replicate is. I could go on, but your comparison fails to recognize the ultimate point of my argument.
Is that really true? When it first came out, did people play it for nostalgia or historic purposes? If not, why would anyone play it on hard mode?
Note the bolded portion of my sentence.
But, playing it on hard mode back then was simply a way to extend the length of the game. The only purpose of Mega Man 2 is to beat it. You get to the end of the level, you beat it, you beat all the levels, and you're done. There's no replaying for better items, no leveling up, nothing. So, if you want to make the game last longer (more time for your dollars), playing on hard mode is a way to play the game again and have a good time.
Nothing obviously. But action games and rpgs are different things for different people and mindsets and asking why rpg is not an action game is kinda silly, I think.
I think, the game mechanics drives the experience. The more mechanics you have, the more there is to experience, but at the cost of making the game more complex. When you're limited to buttons for interactions, it makes sense to have concise game mechanics, so your experience is challenging a certain type of play.
The problem is when the challenge has no meaning. Imagine Tetris with only straight blocks. I think this is what the argument is about.
But, playing it on hard mode back then was simply a way to extend the length of the game. The only purpose of Mega Man 2 is to beat it. You get to the end of the level, you beat it, you beat all the levels, and you're done. There's no replaying for better items, no leveling up, nothing. So, if you want to make the game last longer (more time for your dollars), playing on hard mode is a way to play the game again and have a good time.
Really? I think it's quite disappointing that you're missing, over and over, the idea that other people have different reasons to play a game than you do. And then saying those reasons aren't valid for a particular game or type of game.
I think, the game mechanics drives the experience. The more mechanics you have, the more there is to experience, but at the cost of making the game more complex. When you're limited to buttons for interactions, it makes sense to have concise game mechanics, so your experience is challenging a certain type of play.
The problem is when the challenge has no meaning. Imagine Tetris with only straight blocks. I think this is what the argument is about.
Do I understand you right, that you are saying that rpg games or games with heavy rpg mechanics are dull and boring, like tetris with only straight pieces. If that's so then ether you are wrong in your views of rpgs, maybe rpgs are not dull and you just have missed the point where their challenges and interesting game choices come from. Or alternatively, you are right and rpgs are dull and everyone who plays and enjoys them is stupid. In which case I ask, "what's wrong with that?" If we stupid people want to enjoy dull stupid games, what are you to tell that put boring rpgs should actually be dynamic and interesting action games.
But you should also design a game around one specific mechanic lest you spread yourself too far. Games that try to do everything universally fail. Games that try to allow people to enjoy for multiple reasons are less strong than games that try to do one thing really well.
You can play Borderlands for any reason at all, but the game is designed to optimize loot getting. If you circumvent that process, you remove incentive to play the rest of the game for the average player.
Allowing for reasonable ways around that is a fairly simple matter of good game design.
Your argument boils down to this: "If they added that extra choice in, I would have to make that choice because it would be optimal, but then the result of making that choice clearly wouldn't be optimal!" Do you not see the issue with this argument?
Not that it wouldn't be optimal for the game. It would shorten the gameplay experience, essentially making the game meaningless. I could skip everything and get right to the reward. It would fail as a skinner box.
Simply adding this change doesn't fix the problem with Borderlands. It makes it a game that and Rym and people like him will play together for some number of hours when it costs $5. It shortens and cheapens the experience for everyone who plays it at full price the way it is and likes that experience. There may be a way to fix Rym's problem, but what he describes is not at all it, because you shouldn't break things about the game that people already like just to add in a new audience that doesn't even want to buy the game new and at full price with those features anyways. It's the worst business and design choice they could make with that series.
I disagree. Games are designed to provide a particular experience in the best way the designers can muster.
The designers of BL2 post a lot of design articles (This is about the loot specifically), and if you read them, you realize they design this game exclusively on: 1. The loot drops 2. Character builds Honestly, the character builds only matter to let you kill enemies faster and better. The only reward for that is more loot.
The game is designed to optimally give loot in a way that will make players feel like they accomplished something without it being too easy. You can't give too much loot away, but you also can't give too little.
If you can bypass the slow increase of loot and skip to the end, you bypass their entire design.
Yes, Borderlands 2 is designed quite specifically to instill you with a strong desire to get loot, and the game is designed around loot progression; that's totally fine.
However, that desire isn't there to exist simply for its own sake as an all-consuming maw; it's a psychological pointer that's supposed to guide you through the game's content, in addition to the "finish the content" pointer. Yes, some people will dedicate themselves more to loot than others, and again that's totally OK.
The way you're arguing, though, it's as though that mere psychological pointer is completely unstoppable and will be followed at all costs, even to the detriment of destroying the entire game experience, despite the fact that the game experience is itself the actual point of the game.
Yes, Axel, due to human psychology, I'll grant that you can harm the game experience for a lot of people by offering up explicit game-breaking options within the context of the game - for example, allowing players to easily obtain an "ULTIMATE GUN" with a few seconds of work inside the game.
However, (unless your "game" is actually an elaborate experiment on delayed gratification), it's pretty obvious that the above example is simply a matter of bad game design.
Plenty of games have a similar style of play to Borderlands, and yet have cheats built into the game. Those games aren't instantly broken simply because cheats exist. As long as you sufficiently separate those mechanisms from the direct context of the game, that gives players enough time to stop and think "wait, maybe this will ruin my game experience?" Hell, you can even give the player an explicit warning like "WARNING: THIS MAY RUIN YOUR GAME EXPERIENCE".
You could even go so far as to have an external character editor, or even let third parties do the work of making those kinds of editors. Does the mere existence of character editors mean Diablo II is entirely ruined and unplayable as a single-player or co-op game?
Comments
Say, I've been playing for a while, and I'm level 50. And say Axel and Rym come in, Axel has been playing for a few weeks, he's about level 25, and Rym is level one, straight outta compton the tutorial. Axel wants to play a game with Rym and I, so we party up together. Rym and I tick boxes that say "Match party leader's level." It doesn't take anything from me, and it gives me the same level of items and experience, but it also scales down my effect on enemies to match someone at level 25 with the same gear or equivalent. For Rym, it scales all of his gear up, and gives him a bit of an experience boost, but doesn't give him stuff he can't really use. And Axel gets everything appropriate to his level.
The only quibble I've noted so far is that it is kinda possible to match level with someone who is at such a low level that even with everything throttled back, unless they remove certain things, you still have somewhat of an advantage, because the newer players don't have access to the necessary skills or parts of the game yet, and thus the enemies you encounter are not built to counter any of the higher tier skills you might have. And there are areas of the game where it's very hard to play if you're not above a certain level, because they're optimized for certain levels of play - but the game does a good job at keeping you out of most of those not with force, but coercion, mostly by giving you a clear path of things to do, and a number of level-appropriate activities that you can get in on.
It's not perfect, but it's a pretty decent mechanism.
That said, Guild Wars 2 is another example of that system being implemented at least pretty well, though not perfectly.
In the Subscription/MMO model, the game requires you to invest specific time to do specific things. Things are gated behind bars and you need to spend x hours doing y thing to get to the thing you want. Loot can't be gotten anywhere, certain enemies drop certain loot. Those enemies are in certain areas. Those areas are only accessed after you do x, which (etc.).
This requires hours of work. This means you have to set aside X time. Just playing for X amount of time each day doesn't necessarily work, because you also HAVE to group up for dungeons and that means you have to coordinate with others and set aside the time required to complete the specific tasks. In this case, alleviating that burden is useful, especially if the game has a subscription fee and you need/want to accomplish something in that limited time.
In something like Borderlands, you can play for 20 minutes each day and eventually get everything other people have. You don't need to organize or coordinate or whatnot because basically every item in the game can be dropped randomly from anything at any time. The game is all about what you choose to put into it, rather than forcing you to put in certain amounts of time in certain areas.
Borderlands is not an orthogame in any meaningful sense. It's not even an idiogame really. It's effectively a single player game with a co-op option. It's an... autogame? Terminology doesn't matter at this level, but the point remains. Borderlands is not a competitive game. It is not an orthogame.
By your logic, having "normal" and "hard" mode options in Megaman 2 is broken, because smart players will ALWAYS choose normal.
There are two PvP modes; one of them, SPvP, is actually an entirely separate game mode where everyone instantly gets maximum level and maximum gear; combat occurs in discrete instances with capture point based scoring objectives.
The other one has massive (100+ player) maps with siege weapons, resources, and supply lines; everyone is scaled up to the maximum level, although a true level 80 definitely has significant advantages over a scaled 80 due to skill trees and gear.
But Mega Man 2 has much, much, MUCH different utility than Borderlands, especially in the modern day perspective. Playing Mega Man 2 nowadays has one of a few purposes:
1. Nostalgia. Winning/losing is mostly unimportant at this point, so either difficulty makes sense.
2. Showing off that you can win. In this case, playing on Normal means people might not care as much, so you need to play on Hard to garner people's attention/appreciation.
3. Learning why people liked it in the first place. Either difficulty is viable, because it depends on what the experience you're seeking to replicate is.
I could go on, but your comparison fails to recognize the ultimate point of my argument.
If you choose to go for (2) instead of (1), you're the one making a mistake by making a decision that is clearly suboptimal according to your real utility function. In short,
But, playing it on hard mode back then was simply a way to extend the length of the game. The only purpose of Mega Man 2 is to beat it. You get to the end of the level, you beat it, you beat all the levels, and you're done. There's no replaying for better items, no leveling up, nothing. So, if you want to make the game last longer (more time for your dollars), playing on hard mode is a way to play the game again and have a good time.
The problem is when the challenge has no meaning. Imagine Tetris with only straight blocks. I think this is what the argument is about.
If that's so then ether you are wrong in your views of rpgs, maybe rpgs are not dull and you just have missed the point where their challenges and interesting game choices come from.
Or alternatively, you are right and rpgs are dull and everyone who plays and enjoys them is stupid. In which case I ask, "what's wrong with that?" If we stupid people want to enjoy dull stupid games, what are you to tell that put boring rpgs should actually be dynamic and interesting action games.
You can play Borderlands for any reason at all, but the game is designed to optimize loot getting. If you circumvent that process, you remove incentive to play the rest of the game for the average player.
Your argument boils down to this:
"If they added that extra choice in, I would have to make that choice because it would be optimal, but then the result of making that choice clearly wouldn't be optimal!"
Do you not see the issue with this argument?
Simply adding this change doesn't fix the problem with Borderlands. It makes it a game that and Rym and people like him will play together for some number of hours when it costs $5. It shortens and cheapens the experience for everyone who plays it at full price the way it is and likes that experience. There may be a way to fix Rym's problem, but what he describes is not at all it, because you shouldn't break things about the game that people already like just to add in a new audience that doesn't even want to buy the game new and at full price with those features anyways. It's the worst business and design choice they could make with that series.
The designers of BL2 post a lot of design articles (This is about the loot specifically), and if you read them, you realize they design this game exclusively on:
1. The loot drops
2. Character builds
Honestly, the character builds only matter to let you kill enemies faster and better. The only reward for that is more loot.
The game is designed to optimally give loot in a way that will make players feel like they accomplished something without it being too easy. You can't give too much loot away, but you also can't give too little.
If you can bypass the slow increase of loot and skip to the end, you bypass their entire design.
You also can't seem to understand that you could play for this goal regardless of any other options in the game with a modicum of self control.
However, that desire isn't there to exist simply for its own sake as an all-consuming maw; it's a psychological pointer that's supposed to guide you through the game's content, in addition to the "finish the content" pointer. Yes, some people will dedicate themselves more to loot than others, and again that's totally OK.
The way you're arguing, though, it's as though that mere psychological pointer is completely unstoppable and will be followed at all costs, even to the detriment of destroying the entire game experience, despite the fact that the game experience is itself the actual point of the game.
Yes, Axel, due to human psychology, I'll grant that you can harm the game experience for a lot of people by offering up explicit game-breaking options within the context of the game - for example, allowing players to easily obtain an "ULTIMATE GUN" with a few seconds of work inside the game.
However, (unless your "game" is actually an elaborate experiment on delayed gratification), it's pretty obvious that the above example is simply a matter of bad game design.
Plenty of games have a similar style of play to Borderlands, and yet have cheats built into the game. Those games aren't instantly broken simply because cheats exist. As long as you sufficiently separate those mechanisms from the direct context of the game, that gives players enough time to stop and think "wait, maybe this will ruin my game experience?" Hell, you can even give the player an explicit warning like "WARNING: THIS MAY RUIN YOUR GAME EXPERIENCE".
You could even go so far as to have an external character editor, or even let third parties do the work of making those kinds of editors. Does the mere existence of character editors mean Diablo II is entirely ruined and unplayable as a single-player or co-op game?