It’s a perpetual dance in game design. Give the players freedom to go do crazy things, or put them on rails so they don’t break your game (or play it the “wrong” way)? It’s a fine line that “live” games (MMOs, MTG, Warhammer, even) are especially wary of, since they are constantly on the edge between broken and brilliant… especially since that line is different for different players.
So, while the RealID kerfluffle is also stirring troubled waters between freedom and control, the game design of WoW is also testing the waters in the “control” side of the (kiddie?) pool. I fall squarely on the side of freedom, exploration and experimentation in games. To me, that’s the point of playing a game; to try something I can’t do in real life, and tinker in new and unusual ways. That’s my “theory of fun“; messing around, looking around, taking control as a player and seeing what happens. That’s why my articles on game design are more about giving the player control, not controlling the player. (It’s also why I consider failure itself punishment enough, and don’t particularly care for “death penalties” and other punishment mechanics. Just let me play the game, already!)
So, Blizzard wants to take the reins and make class talent trees more like immutable pillars or mini-classes, less like… guidelines. The goal seems to be to make the newbie experience better, and give class trees their own (dev-defined) identity and playstyle earlier in the leveling curve.
OK, the goal of improving the leveling game and newbie experience sounds good to me so far, and entirely in-theme for the renovated world we’re getting in Cataclysm. The newbie experience is crucial to getting the game to “stick”, and letting players have a taste of what they can do later is a great idea. (It’s played differently in things like Metroid Prime… which I’d actually prefer, but that’s not terribly likely here. Pity.) The sooner a Warrior can feel like a Warrior, or a Hunter can feel like a Hunter, the better (which is why pets at character creation is a Good Idea, while we’re talking class identity). It might even make grouping pre-endgame better, as players learn their roles earlier… if you care about that sort of thing.
Thing is, I’d have done it by making the trees more synergistic, rather than locking players into one progression path. (The very least that I’d do is make respeccing free and easy like Guild Wars, if we’re going to be stuck maxxing a tree before experimenting, and make Dual Spec very cheap and offer it early, say level 20 at the latest.) Rather than lock players into a choice of one of thirty subclasses and telling them to get used to it, I’d give them more choices and make them all interesting and useful, letting player playstyle dictate direction. I know, I know, that’s more work, but hey, it’s not like Blizzard’s a charity, hm? That sort of experimental playstyle also pretty much requires frequent respecs.
I like that a leveling Warrior can pick up a few Arms talents and a few Fury talents and go to town. As time goes on, generalization tends to be less powerful than specialization, but more flexible. I love that balance, and much prefer the option to sacrifice some power for flexibility. That’s why I play a Druid. (Insert rant about how hybrids are as good as two or three “pure” classes all rolled into one, if you so desire; I think there’s a good argument to be made for making “pure” classes undeniably best at what they do, while still keeping hybrids viable. I know, I know, in a world where 3% improved crit rate is worth investing three talent points, even a hybrid at 95% potential is going to feel like it’s nerfed… that’s one of the problems with only having three combat roles and 10 classes…)
So yeah, I’m a bit ambivalent about this talent tree overhaul. All in all, I can’t really find much but personal preference to base complaints in, and I do strongly believe that options are the heart of games. I don’t like the straitjacketing that the changes represent because I tend to explore and tinker rather than just go with the flow, and yet… the streamlining is probably a Good Thing overall, since it may well make learning the trinity easier earlier, and learning your class more entertaining (rather than only coming to fruition at the endgame).
As long as WoW is stuck in that class-trinity rut, they may as well teach it well.
For now, I’m going to say:
“OK, Blizzard, I detest your business practices with the deepest, hottest fire of a grumpy dragon, and this Game Design thing you do, well, I think it needs work, too, but since you’re dedicated to a path I’d not choose, you may as well do it right, and this change, well… that’ll do.”
…and yes, I think it’s important to draw a distinction between the game design and the business design. They do affect each other in unhealthy ways, but credit where credit is due, after all. The WoW devs do have a few good ideas here and there. I do not agree with their apparent core philosophy of control over freedom, but they are at least making a few good changes to make their game better… even if I’d have made a very different game.
It’s like the Cataclysm on the whole; I think it’s a good idea (and I called for “old world” renovation a year before they announced it), but I’d have made the game world more dynamic from the start. They are doing decent design for their goals and within the box they put themselves in. Perhaps that’s a bit of “condemning with praise”, but so be it. I do think they do good game design, but it’s increasingly a game that I don’t particularly like.
A few other thoughts from bloggers with a bit more… class: BBB, Larisa, Spinks, Chastity, PvD, Copra
Tish Tosh Tesh 
What these class/talent changes feel like is the old progression in Everquest 2. You chose an archetype and then at level ten picked one of two classes that specialised that tree more. They ditched that system a while ago of course but it’s almost like WoW is moving to that kind of system.
I seem to remember Tabula Rasa and Aion doing something similar, too, now that you mention it. It makes me wonder if these things just move in natural cycles, or if Blizzard is consciously chasing that old Everquest lovin’ feeling again.
Interesting article.
I would advise Blizzard to leave off the excuse of making these changes to make it easier for the new player – surely now after all these years every new character is an alt or a new account of someone struck by the banhammer?
However, they are quite welcome to say that these changes are there to make it easier for the n00b – in my experience there’s always some nugget at the back of pugs. Hopefully by railroading these people we’ll be able to ask for a tank and not end up with a mail wearing fury warrior carrying a shield.
“letting player playstyle dictate direction.”
From what I see alot of players surrender their playstyle to other people “What’s a good build…I don’t wanna get gimped”. Alot of people just want to do what the crowd does rather than do their own exploration.
“(It’s also why I consider failure itself punishment enough, and don’t particularly care for “death penalties” and other punishment mechanics.”
The guild wars 2 developers seem to be that way as well. But honestly I think it undercuts the priority, assuming the priority is challenge rather than kind of pottering around in another world.
Really the idea of ‘punishment’ is missplaced itself – challenge is that some people have got the skills to do it, and others don’t (but may be able to develop them with practice). Really you shouldn’t be punished, you just shouldn’t be able to complete the game if your not skilled enough, as much as you might not be able to complete the climbing of a real life mountain because your not skilled or conditioned enough. Draining people of gold or wasting their time as a ghost just delays them. But the thing is, all the people who love exploring all push to undercut a system which stops you from exporing everything if your skills aren’t up to scratch. Death penalties are the legacy of the ‘explorer’ player. They are your legacy.
Wrote about the guild wars article on my blog
http://philosophergamer.blogspot.com/2010/07/guild-wars-2-death-and-other.html
Not to mention I think it’s crap to call it a ‘death penalty’ when your coming back – it’s not death if your 100% assured to come back.
“Really you shouldn’t be punished, you just shouldn’t be able to complete the game if your not skilled enough, as much as you might not be able to complete the climbing of a real life mountain because your not skilled or conditioned enough.”
Yes, but punishment mechanics have nothing to do with skill. They are after the pass/fail skill test, and more often than not just a time sink. I blame the subscription model for that, as time directly translates to money.
As far as explorers wanting to see content, you can use that as a partial excuse to rail against nerfing of raids and maybe the move away from skill-based play, but Achievers are just as much to blame there. There’s not a logical leap from Explorers to punishment mechanics, certainly not through skill-based play.
“Yes, but punishment mechanics have nothing to do with skill.”
Well, as I said, you shouldn’t be punished, you should just be able to get as far as your skill allows you (for a game with priority on challenge)
“As far as explorers wanting to see content, you can use that as a partial excuse to rail against nerfing of raids and maybe the move away from skill-based play, but Achievers are just as much to blame there. There’s not a logical leap from Explorers to punishment mechanics, certainly not through skill-based play.”
I don’t know about the name ‘achiever’ – do you mean ‘acquirer’?
Really I do draw a logical leap from them, because both the explorer and the acquirer utterly ignore the first priority a game has on challenge, treating the first priority as a bug that gets in the way of what they want (as if all games are about what they want exclusively) rather than the main point of play.
Of course not all ‘games’ have a first priority of challenge – in my estimate WOW doesn’t have it as first priority.
Fact is there are bucks to be made trying to please all people all at the same time. But in the end it waters down not being able to see all content for lack of skill into a death penalty, which makes for weak challenge, gets up the nose of the explorer and is just a suffered necessary evil of economy for the acquirer.
I’d blame the game companies, but honestly they are helpless to stop explorers and aquirers ignoring the challenge first priority (and the companies need to make a buck when they can’t do anything about that). So yeah, I do basically blame people who, after hundreds of thousands of years of challenge based board/card games, etc, just ignore that history utterly and push to make all current games solely focused on their agenda, rather than to push for new games to be made that are specialised for exploration or aquisition. But instead they push to twist and spindle challenge first games to be ‘less buggy and let me see/get everything’.
Death penalties aren’t a mistake someone else pushed onto explorers/acquirers, it’s something they pushed onto themselves and everyone else.
The first thing I thought of when reading this post was the contrast between “Western” RPGs (Wizardry, Might & Magic, etc.) and Japanese RPGs (Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior/Quest, etc.) In general, the Western RPGs allowed a lot more freedom, particularly when it came to character creation and party formation. Japanese RPGs demanded more control in order to tell a more coherent story. Personally, I tend to like the Western style more because it allows for more interesting gameplay.
I think one of the problem with WoW’s redesign of the talent trees is that they’re taking too many steps at once. This is a common design mistake: if fire spells are doing too much damage, poor designers will reduce the damage fire spells do AND will increase the effect fire defense has. Usually only one of these steps is needed.
It’s the same thing here. Not only do you have to pick a tree early, but you’re restricted in where you can spend your points. I think that the first step would have been enough: giving the player their “signature” skill then allowing them to spend their points wherever they want. I suspect part of the problem is that for some specializations there just isn’t a compelling “signature skill”. For example, there’s no one “defining” skill for Feral Druids. Someone wanting to play a Feral Druid might then take the Tree of Life form then spend all their points in Feral if the signature Feral skill wasn’t that much better.
Anyway, Cataclysm is definitely turning out to be a disappointment. I wasn’t all that excited about it in the first place, to be honest. But, I was expecting the Cataclysm to be something more like the transition from EQ1 to EQ2, where the whole map was going to be nigh unrecognizable. Now the news about pared down talent trees elicits another sigh of disappointment….
Ah, well, at least I have LotRO, I guess.
Callan, are you asserting that “challenge” and “Explorer” style motivation are diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive?
If that’s the case (and it may not be, but that’s what I’m getting out of your comments), I disagree strongly, and I suspect that Wolfshead might as well. He’s an “old guard” Explorer who seems to want challenge. Exploring isn’t about wanting everything for free or even easy, at least not in my experience. That’s not to say that some Explorers don’t think that way, but I tend to believe that the “challenge” factor is something that runs independent of the Explorer scale, or even of any of the other Bartle types.
Brian, does that line of logic (form Western to Eastern RPGs, something that I’ve wondered about in the past) then suggest that “interesting gameplay” and “strong story” are also in a mutually exclusive relationship? I’ve thought that may be the case before, but I’m not sure they are on a single, clear axis in a pure balance that steals from one to give to the other.
I’m still pretty stoked about Cataclysm and I can understand – and even appreciate – the changes to the talent system. For a long, long time, players have never just been a Warrior or a Priest, they’ve been an Arms Warrior or a Shadow Priest. Blizzard are just taking this concept further and making it easier for them to design and the players to comprende.
For instance, trying to level a Priest with the current talent mechanic is just painful because you can’t actually get any of the abilities you need because they have to be high enough up the tree to prevent mis-use at lvl 80. This means the class is an utter pain until about lvl 40 and then suddenly everything becomes super easy. That’s not only silly but plain bad design.
I think the new system is going to make the leveling experience a lot more fun but yes, it does sacrifice a lot of flexbility and freedom. That’s kinda the mantra of Blizzard though so I’ve come to accept it. They’re like the Apple of the MMO world 🙂
My big problem with WoW atm is really the community and that’s what’s pushing me away…
[…] Tesh contemplates freedom vs control. […]
Tesh, as first priorities yes, challenge and explorer are dimetrically opposed, simply because there can be only one first priority, otherwise there is no first priority. It doesn’t even make sense to say it ‘challenge is my first priorty and exploration is my first priority’. Can you say that with a straight face?
Now, can you have exploration as first priority and challenge as the second priority? Or Challenge first, exploration second? Yes! But the secondary one is literally the bitch to the first priority. Your not really doing challenge if it’s second, because if at any point its challenge contradicts exploration, the way it contradicts it gets cut out. You might say you don’t want it easy, but if it comes down to a crunch where the only choices are between A: Having no exploration at all but challenge is present, and B: Having no challenge at all, but exploration is fully supported, you will always choose B! Sure you might try to fit in challenge where you can in exploration – but if you were stuck and could only choose one (kinda like a spiderman ‘choose mary jane or the bus load of kids’ crunch point, but without the BS ability to save both), you will always choose exploration and let challenge fall to the flames.
Side note: Is any person fixed in wanting challenge or exploration as first priority? No, it’s possible to change between them, though people often get fixated (or just don’t realise there’s any other vector). It’s even possible to ‘gear shift’ mid game, but if the game doesn’t have a gear shift of it’s own at that point, it ends up sucky.
So I still draw a connection between explorers and punishment mechanics – they tried to play challenge first games with a exploration first priority. Now that’s not the problem. The problem is when they start petitioning developers as if the challenge first game had bugs in it or sucked and needs to be changed, cause the explorer couldn’t see everything properly. And so the developers watered down the ‘needs skill to complete it’ into death penalties. So I do attribute death penalties as being a legacy of beligerant explorers trying to force their square peg exploration through round hole challenge games.
Callan, you still can’t equate “challenge” with “punishment”. The logic doesn’t track that way. Challenge is what happens before failure, punishment is what happens afterwards. You can have very challenging activities without any punishment whatsoever, or barely challenging activities with huge punishment. Punishment follows failure, but it has no bearing whatsoever on challenge itself.
Risk incorporates punishment and loss, perhaps, but risk isn’t the same thing as challenge either.
Also, as has been noted many times, WoW isn’t about challenge. Elements of it are, say high end raiding, but we’re talking about a large, multifaceted pegboard, not a game with one round hole.
Tesh wrote:
Brian, does that line of logic (form Western to Eastern RPGs, something that I’ve wondered about in the past) then suggest that “interesting gameplay” and “strong story” are also in a mutually exclusive relationship? I’ve thought that may be the case before, but I’m not sure they are on a single, clear axis in a pure balance that steals from one to give to the other.
To put it in terms of your title, I think it’s fair to say that the easiest way to tell a compelling story in a game is to take control and reduce the player’s freedom. If Aeris has to die, allowing the player to just not go to the place where it’s scripted for her to die violates the planned story.
Now, I don’t think this has to be the case. I think you can develop the story such that you can have a more flexible story while allowing the player to have more freedom. The problem is that most of our storytelling over the past few centuries has been linear in focus. Moving away from linear storytelling is going to be (has been? currently is?) hard to do, but I think once we master the techniques we’ll see games come into their own as a storytelling medium.
Tesh, I’m not sure what your arguing now – I’m looking historically at where death penalties evolved from, in game design terms. I’m looking at the exploration driven players lobbying for his interest regardless of whatever was there prior. I’m not sure if your ‘can’t equate challenge with punishment’ has something to do with that?
[i]Also, as has been noted many times, WoW isn’t about challenge.[/i]
I said that as well. I’m looking at this historically. Saying wow isn’t about challenge is like looking at a cold corpse and saying that corpse isn’t about murder, as it’s clearly just lying there and for that matter, already dead. Much like looking at prior history to find how a corpse became a corpse, I’m looking at prior game manufacturing history to find how wow got to the state it is in terms of death penalties. Yes, wow isn’t about challenge and a corpse isn’t about murder. But how did they get to their respective states?
Three major points, really.
One, challenge is independent of rewards and punishments.
Two, I think you can rightfully blame Explorers in part for the “dumbing down” of the challenge… but you can also blame Socials and Achievements (more than Achievers, I think, curiously). The interesting corollary that I see is that we also have this sort of “dumbing down” in the form of difficulty settings on offline games, and there isn’t nearly the fuss. It’s the pride-based comparative contention of multiplayer games (and Achievements on something like XBox Live) that even makes this question of challenge relevant. Also, the contention is usually based in the *having* as well, whether it’s a title (Achievement) or *stuff* from “elite” places, again, not really a fair gauge of challenge.
To that end, I’d suggest that at least part of the problem is that too many players take enjoyment out of feeling better than other people, not out of playing the game and conquering *its* challenges. That has nothing to do with Exploring in itself. It’s more about pride, which can be a part of any of Bartle’s types.
Three, if we’re tracing death penalties, we should probably take a walk through MUDs and maybe even Rogue-like games. It seems to me that there is a hardcore mentality that success can only come if there is significant risk of loss, rather than gauging success by conquering the challenge itself. That’s not a bad ethos, but risk and challenge are different things, and will motivate players differently.
There might even be time for a tangential trip through arcade games, digging into the business side of punishments. Death penalties are ultimately just time sinks, which translate to money in a sub game, or even quarters in an arcade machine that exhausts your three lives via cheap mechanics. Later, with RPGs that boast of “40+ hours of play” in an attempt to seem deep and valuable, we still have time sinks (though maybe more “grind” than “death penalty”), but they are there to be a selling point, again, largely to cater to the hardcore mentality.
That’s not bad, but neither is it the mainstream of the modern game industry. There’s a place for such old-school purist notions of game design as a place for learning via hard knocks. It would be a shame to lose those games. Still, many people would rather play than be punished, and in an increasingly market-driven industry, it’s no surprise to see moves to satisfy the customer.
“Moving away from linear storytelling is going to be (has been? currently is?) hard to do, but I think once we master the techniques we’ll see games come into their own as a storytelling medium.”
Agreed, Brian. I see a lot of potential for games and storytelling, but they really are different from any other medium. I’m not sure anyone has a handle on it yet.
Tesh, I think you’ve taken your feeling of ‘I feel like I’m being punished’ to mean you are being punished.
Like say your flying a little spaceship along and 100 shots will fly at your ship over a period of time. If you get hit you begin at the start again.
Now I may be wrong, but it sounds like you’d feel ‘punished’ by being sent back to the start, thus your pidgeon holing it as a punishment.
Lets take the example again, but this time if your ship is hit it flashes a bit, but that’s it. You go through to the end.
Challenge without ‘punishment’?
No, there was no challenge at all – even if you try real, real hard to dodge all the shots, there was no challenge there, inherent in the machinery of the game. (I wont get into self made challenges, were talking what’s in the physical game, not made up in our heads)
Being sent back to the start isn’t a ‘punishment’, it’s necessary in this case for there to be any challenge at all in the game!
I might be wrong, but every time I try and describe death penalties and ghost walks as watered down challenge (historically watered down by explorers), you try and just call them punishments. Whether you feel they are just punishments doesn’t determine whether they are for everyone else.
To keep calling them punishments is to fail to see the legacy of explorer lobbying upon challenge. Indeed it further lobbies “Why do we need this ‘punishment’! Away with it!”, now severing challenge entirely after having watered it down.
Much the same goes for your risk and challenge divide, again your basing it on whether you feel a risk. Try nethack on explore mode – all the stuff you apparently ‘risk’ isn’t a risk that is somehow seperate from challenge. Without the capacity to lose it all, there is no challenge, just….exploration mode. Aptly named, given the topic.
You’re still missing the terminology. Challenge is how difficult something is to do successfully. Punishment is what happens if you fail. It matters not whether that’s loss of stuff, experience or just time, it happens *after* the challenge was failed, and is independent of the challenge itself.
Risk is something else entirely; it’s a measure of how much you have to lose for failure against your chances of success. It’s the ratio between challenge and punishment.
That’s the hinge that all this pivots on; the actual success/failure moment. Challenge deals with getting there, punishment is how much you lose if you fail (and naturally, reward is how much you gain if you succeed), and risk is the measure of how the challenge and potential loss interact. Challenge and punishment are totally different functions, and risk simply compares the two.
It’s like there was a compromise made for explorers in what started out as a primarily challenge market. They wanted to see it all, okay, so we’ll water down challenge for them and…
Then the second or third generation of explorers comes along and doesn’t recognise any compromise was made already, and just see’s punishments instead, that aren’t to do with challenge apparently and should get the chuck.
I think you missed my example, Tesh – if the little ship is not sent back to the start when hit, then there is no challenge at all.
How can being sent back to the start be considered not part of challenge, when without it there is no challenge?
I’m not missing the terminology, the terminology is flawed. The terminology is trying to say ‘a buck of water’ and ‘water’ are seperate things therefore you can remove all the water from the bucket and it’s still a ‘bucket of water’.
The ‘bucket of water’ the bucket needs water in it or it’s just a ‘bucket’. Here the challenge needs the set back, either being sent back to the start of the level on a hit, or having a resource like gold dropped, etc, otherwise it’s not a challenge, it’s just an animation. As much as a ‘bucket of water’ is not a ‘bucket of water’ when there is no water in it, even if water can be considered a seperate object.
That’s the hinge that all this pivots on; the actual success/failure moment.
There is no moment with your seperation – I already said in the above ship example, if the ship gets hit by a bullet, flashes a bit but nothing new happens, it’s a complete non moment.
Or do you want to call it a ‘challenge’ to fly the ship on the screen, with bullets that if they hit the ship, just sail past and nothing is any different to if you hadn’t been hit?
If you don’t want to call that a challenge, your challenge/punishment seperation is disproven.
(ps: my post above was a cross post and I didn’t realise at the time)
Gah, a ‘bucket of water’, not a buck
The challenge is not getting hit. This can be tuned to a wide variety of difficulties, and again, is independent of the punishment. The punishment is what happens if you get hit. The hinge is getting hit (or not, but that does mean each bullet is itself a hinge, and the reward is usually just survival).
Why is the challenge not being hit? Challenges don’t just exist, some person somewhere defines the challenge they are giving – if someone writes a ‘game’ where the ship ignores bullets then gets to the end and the program closes, was there a challenge given by them at all?
I’ll tell you what – if I write a game where your sent back to the start on a bullet hit, no, the challenge is NOT to not get hit. The challenge in my game is not to be sent back to the start. Dodging bullets is just a means to that end.
But your ignoring the challenge I layed down and instead focusing on the challenge you’ve invented in your own mind. Then your claiming being sent back is a punishment, simply because your focusing on the challenge you invented and being sent back is some sort of thing on top of the challenge you’ve invented/isn’t there.
The hinge is getting hit (or not, but that does mean each bullet is itself a hinge, and the reward is usually just survival).
In my example your ship continues on/’survives’ whether your hit or not. There is no hinge moment, because nothing ‘hinges’ on whether your hit or not.
In the end your working from your own invented idea of what the challenge ‘is’. That’s simply not fair to use as a disproving point to me as it’s based on your whim and personal desires as to what is challenge and what is just, in your mind, a punishment. Your own preference and whim on what is challenge isn’t objective fact (except in terms of being objective fact on what you prefer). We can’t discuss what is challenge and what is punishment when you work from ‘whatever I decide is how it is’. Though if you want to decide just for yourself what is challenge and what is punishment, that distinction makes sense to me.