Musings on basic character development issues

(Senethro) #61

Deadly serious, even amongst all the irony going on, and your inability to understand my post is a perfect mirror of mine.

The four questions I have in my previous post are things I don’t understand and so make your answer look like white noise to me.

Edit: Quotes from previous page

[QUOTE=tokamak;273057]Time investment is a cost, a cost to opportunity. A cost to opportunity is good because it adds weight to decisions, rewarding the players that set priorities and make the right choices.

It also discourages copy-cat behaviour as well as trial and error play.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Senethro;273063]WHy is weight good, why is it desirable that some choices are “right”, how will it discourage copy-cat behaviour, why is trial and error play bad?
[/QUOTE]

(tokamak) #62

Really? “Why are some decisions right” is a serious question? Because it really just sounded like rephrasing my post with added question marks.

(CapnHowdy21) #63

I think the point here is that they want your decisions to matter, and they want you to be tied to your character.

In call of duty, there is no investment in your character. Most of the time you probably aren’t even aware of your character. You simply make the best group load outs that you can, then you pick the best one for any given situation. This is good for the competitive aspect of the game, since every player eventually has access to every ability. You simply just bring your best. This is at the expense of character. It promotes choice, but hinders decisions.

There is a very good article about choice vs decisions done by Mark Rosewater, lead designer for Magic:The Gathering that I will try and sum up here. Players love choice. It gives them more power. Choice is going I want this and this. Choice just allows for more. However it does not create tension. Decisions create tension. You can have this or this. No you have to think. Now there is tension.

Brink wants character, and they want tension. Since it is harder to change your character, your decisions matter. What do I want to bring to the battle. Do I want to be the best medic I can be, or should I be more versatile. This creates actual decisions and ties you to your character. With the unique visual style, it will allow you to become attached to your character as well. Now who your bring to the battle matters. If I bring my best engineer guy, I am stuck with my choice for that battle. Their is weight to that decision.

Now granted, decisions can be bad if they create negative tension. If you could never change your character, that would be negative tension. Thus there needs to be some system to allow for change. If change was free all those decisions would be gone. At that point why not just give everyone access to every power but only allow them 20 at a time.

(tokamak) #64

Awesome, tension is a good word here. You want to feel that weight whenever you press the ‘conform configuration?’ button.

(Senethro) #65

Yeah, I edited that about 10 mins ago. Unless you’ve not taken on the question as it stands now, “why is it desirable that some choices are “right”?”.

If some choices are “right” then why have wrong ones? Wasteful.

I find decision weight to be bad because it stops me whimsically changing my game style or doing gimmick games with friends (TF2, flaregun only, low gravity, 1 hp).

Why is copy-cat behaviour bad? How will penalizing changing reduce it? As far as I can tell, it’ll increase it as people will make “safe” choices leading to less variety in the population.

“Why is trial and error bad?” surely needs no explanation.

(CapnHowdy21) #66

Also there are a couple other points. We have 16 character slots with a lot of customization for your looks. Splash Damage wants you to see all these cool outfits and make cool characters. If you can easily change your abilities, you will most likely stick to one character. Since it is harder to do so, your more likely to make more characters and more likely to experience more character content.

The other upside is again the investment in your characters. As I said, there is no investment in Call of Duty. I have my shotgun loadout, my all around loadout and so on. In brink you will have, thats my badass engineer. Thats my cool light spec ops guy, hes not great anything, but hes good at everything and can hit objectives quick. You’ll relate to the characters and they wont just be loadouts.

(tokamak) #67

Good in that sense it’s a complete misrepresentation. A right choice is ‘right for you’ in this context, getting a configuration that is effective and that you’re happy with shouldn’t be easy. If it was easy then there wouldn’t be a point to character building in the first place. It needs to be fulfilling as well as paying off (by not having to pay the cost all the time).

Why is copy-cat behaviour bad? How will penalizing changing reduce it? As far as I can tell, it’ll increase it as people will make “safe” choices leading to less variety in the population.

Copy-cat behaviour creates a monoculture of builds, less variance means a simpler form of gameplay which in my eyes is a worse kind of gameplay. If there’s a cost to changing the build then that means people can’t adopt other styles as easily. It means that found it first get to enjoy their edge for at least a brief amount of time before the meta game catches up with them.

Exactly, with a cost they’re your own creation, without a cost they’re just knobs you turned.

(Senethro) #68

[QUOTE=CapnHowdy21;273074]I think the point here is that they want your decisions to matter, and they want you to be tied to your character.

In call of duty, there is no investment in your character. Most of the time you probably aren’t even aware of your character. You simply make the best group load outs that you can, then you pick the best one for any given situation. This is good for the competitive aspect of the game, since every player eventually has access to every ability. You simply just bring your best. This is at the expense of character. It promotes choice, but hinders decisions.

There is a very good article about choice vs decisions done by Mark Rosewater, lead designer for Magic:The Gathering that I will try and sum up here. Players love choice. It gives them more power. Choice is going I want this and this. Choice just allows for more. However it does not create tension. Decisions create tension. You can have this or this. No you have to think. Now there is tension.

Brink wants character, and they want tension. Since it is harder to change your character, your decisions matter. What do I want to bring to the battle. Do I want to be the best medic I can be, or should I be more versatile. This creates actual decisions and ties you to your character. With the unique visual style, it will allow you to become attached to your character as well. Now who your bring to the battle matters. If I bring my best engineer guy, I am stuck with my choice for that battle. Their is weight to that decision.[/quote]

Exedore, do you want me to be tense when clicking on a menu button whether to be a Sergeant Sergeant Shooter Person or a Sergeant Person Master Sergeant?

Now granted, decisions can be bad if they create negative tension. If you could never change your character, that would be negative tension. Thus there needs to be some system to allow for change. If change was free all those decisions would be gone. At that point why not just give everyone access to every power but only allow them 20 at a time.

There is limitation in how many perks you can take. There is limitation in taking perks your level has access to. Why does the system allowing for change need a limitation also?

THATS TOO MUCH TENSION!

(Senethro) #69

Why shouldn’t it be easy?

If it was easy then there wouldn’t be a point to character building in the first place.

I don’t see the value of character building in MP-FPS.

Copy-cat behaviour creates a monoculture of builds, less variance means a simpler form of gameplay which in my eyes is a worse kind of gameplay.

No, penalizing choice will lead to a mono-culture of builds.

If there’s a cost to changing the build then that means people can’t adopt other styles as easily. It means that found it first get to enjoy their edge for at least a brief amount of time before the meta game catches up with them.

Why is this level of meta-game desirable?

Exactly, with a cost they’re your own creation, without a cost they’re just knobs you turned.

I won’t relate to the characters anyway and I’d be surprised at who would. I don’t relate to the Scout in TF2. I’d be surprised and concerned at someone who did.

I want to turn knobs!

(CapnHowdy21) #70

Tensions doesn’t mean your tense. It means you have to stop and think about it. I think they do want you to have that feeling.

I get the feeling this just isn’t for you Senethro. You want access to everything at level 20 and thats just not going to happen. Its fine if you want that, but it seems to me that is want Brink is going to do. So your gonna either have to come to terms with that, or look elsewhere. I’m not trying to be rude. I just don’t think your going to see this side of things. I’d rather you go play a game you’d enjoy instead of playing one you don’t. Hopefully you can become okay with it and enjoy what looks to be a kick ass game, if not, godspeed.

(Weeohhweeohh) #71

If I want to be a light medic almost exclusively, I would choose general and specific class abilities that reflect that. If, for some reason, I picked up the ability that allows me to look in 3rd person while planting a bomb (or accomplishing other objectives) I would be making a bad (or wrong) choice. Why?..because I plan on playing a medic 90% of the time and would hardly ever use that talent. That point could have been spent else where to bolster my medics abilities.

(tokamak) #72

[QUOTE=Senethro;273082]Why shouldn’t it be easy?

I don’t see the value of character building in MP-FPS.[/QUOTE]
Then what the hell is it that you get out of this game?

No, penalizing choice will lead to a mono-culture of builds.

That makes no sense at all. If people can’t easily change, they can’t easily follow trends.

Why is this level of meta-game desirable?

It’s extra depth.

I won’t relate to the characters anyway and I’d be surprised at who would. I don’t relate to the Scout in TF2.

Which could be due to the lack of opportunity cost in that game. You don’t really build characters there.

(Senethro) #73

[QUOTE=CapnHowdy21;273083]Tensions doesn’t mean your tense. It means you have to stop and think about it. I think they do want you to have that feeling.

I get the feeling this just isn’t for you Senethro. You want access to everything at level 20 and thats just not going to happen. Its fine if you want that, but it seems to me that is want Brink is going to do. So your gonna either have to come to terms with that, or look elsewhere. I’m not trying to be rude. I just don’t think your going to see this side of things. I’d rather you go play a game you’d enjoy instead of playing one you don’t. Hopefully you can become okay with it and enjoy what looks to be a kick ass game, if not, godspeed.[/QUOTE]

What I want is SD’s reason, not people who use the word toon or “LIKE IT OR LEAVE IT” as serious answers.

I’m going to play Brink anyway as at its core it looks like a solid MP-FPS, but this system will be a perpetual niggle and irritation to me that will decrease my enjoyment of the game every time I can’t play the game in the way that I want because I won’t want to grind my way back up to the end-game. (christ, just the implications of using “end-game” annoy me)

I’m not like the guys who’ll refuse to buy a game because grenades are offhand instead of a main weapon. I’m very eclectic in my gaming, see positive features and am able to enjoy even terrible games if they have enough interesting ideas in them.

I’d just like to go from a Heavy/Medic one round to a Light/Operative in the next without having to do the equivalent of Prestiging in CoD.

(Jess Alon) #74

[QUOTE=Senethro;273082]Why shouldn’t it be easy?

I don’t see the value of character building in MP-FPS.

No, penalizing choice will lead to a mono-culture of builds.

Why is this level of meta-game desirable?

I won’t relate to the characters anyway and I’d be surprised at who would. I don’t relate to the Scout in TF2. I’d be surprised and concerned at someone who did.

I want to turn knobs![/QUOTE]

The point of the game is obviously over your head.

(Mad Hatter) #75

You are most likely in the minority then (oh cutest of cephalopods). I, and many other people who are interested in this game, look forward to building characters, not just “turning knobs.” They wouldn’t have put in this awesome amount of customization if they wanted the characters to be nothing more than loadouts. You don’t have to connect with them on an emotional level or anything, but I would think you would at least have a little pride in your creations.

And besides all of that, it’s only a one level decrease. I don’t know how long it will take to grow a single level in Brink, but I can’t imagine it being a huge inconvenience.

And and and, if you want to just swap characters you can do that too. You’ll have to build up however many characters you want to work with, but there’s no penalty for switching between them. You can have your Light Operative and eat it too!

(Senethro) #76

Yeah, sure, cool, a system where you could change perks freely would allow you to do that. But it would also allow me to play more than one class/bodytype per week.

(Senethro) #77

[QUOTE=Mad Hatter;273093]
And and and, if you want to just swap characters you can do that too. You’ll have to build up however many characters you want to work with, but there’s no penalty for switching between them.[/QUOTE]

Having to build up extra characters is a penalty.

(Mad Hatter) #78

Do you not want to expend any time or effort on the game, or what? :confused:

(CapnHowdy21) #79

Well since you can give extra xp to those characters it isn’t as bad. I don’t think SD is going to answer you though. You’ll be waiting a while. I also doubt their answer is going to be too different then what you’ve already gotten.

That being said, I love reading about designer insights. So I am entirely sincere in saying Good Luck with getting a response.

(Senethro) #80

Uhhhh, the MP-FPS?

Y’know, the game, not the playing with dolls?

That makes no sense at all. If people can’t easily change, they can’t easily follow trends.

That makes no sense at all, if people can’t easily change, they’ll stick with safe and reliable builds, or what their mate is using that looks good.

It’s extra depth.

Why is depth in the meta-game more valuable than variety within or between rounds?

Which could be due to the lack of opportunity cost in that game. You don’t really build characters there.

Except you do, its just item based instead of XPbased. I don’t like it but at least its very easy.