Pyrian on 2/10/2015 at 21:12
(
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/galleryoftheday/14718-8-Video-Game-Trends-that-Need-to-Die) Responding to the first page of this Escapist article
So, you've got an action that you want to be gated, such that you can't automatically succeed at it, but isn't itself core gameplay. You can:
(1) Unlock it based on character stats
(2) Percentage chance based on character stats
(3) Minigame (with difficulty based on character stats, if game uses stat progressions)
(Also, various combinations thereof, such as minigames that you need a minimum stat to even attempt)
Of these options, I prefer the third.
Option 1 tends to feel arbitrary, as the stat you need generally increases in such a way that it's difficult to know when you need to invest and when such investment would be wasted. Still, this would be my second choice.
Option 2 is incredibly annoying. Nothing makes me decide to save scum like failing a 90% chance to get a significant upgrade.
Option 3 does a bunch of things right: (A) the difficulty you're having with the games is constant feedback towards whether you want to invest in them, (B) with save scumming you still have to complete the challenge you failed, and even (C) it's a nice break from the usual gameplay. The danger, of course, is that fans of the "larger" game may very well not be fans of the minigame. So, you could do something that many examples of the genre do in fact do: make it optional. You can simply spend a quantity of some other resource to successfully skip the minigame.
Admittedly, my opinion is colored by the fact that I mostly enjoy these little games, some of them a great deal. I even liked Bioshock's pipe dream.
Manwe on 2/10/2015 at 21:20
Option 4: no stats, purely based on player skill like Splinter Cell did (up to Chaos Theory).
WingedKagouti on 2/10/2015 at 21:34
Option 3 only works if the minigame isn't badly made. In a more character stat/skill focuses rpg it would likely be out of place, which becomes more of a concern with a heavier dependence on character stat/skill allocation. Fallout and Fallout 2 would not be improved by using a lockpicking system like this, those two games are completely character stat/skill driven in every other aspect (outside dialogue/choices and tactics). Fallout 3 has more player skill involved in the game as a whole and thus a lockpicking minigame with player skill being a factor fits right in.
Pyrian on 2/10/2015 at 22:37
Thanks for responding. :cheeky:
Quote Posted by WingedKagouti
Option 3 only works if the minigame isn't badly made.
It's a rare feature that manages to add to a game
despite being badly made. :D Still, it would be a fair point that making a good minigame is more difficult than making a serviceable pure stat-gate.
Quote Posted by WingedKagouti
In a more character stat/skill focuses rpg it would likely be out of place, which becomes more of a concern with a heavier dependence on character stat/skill allocation. Fallout and Fallout 2 would not be improved by using a lockpicking system like this, those two games are completely character stat/skill driven in every other aspect (outside dialogue/choices and tactics). Fallout 3 has more player skill involved in the game as a whole and thus a lockpicking minigame with player skill being a factor fits right in.
Doesn't Fallout 3 use percentages? With New Vegas using stat-gates? Anyway, the example I want to bring up is actually Shadowrun Returns, which is heavily stat-based like Fallout 1&2. Shadowrun uses a lot of stat-gates, with a couple of Matrix minigames in the latest version (the Matrix itself being an outright extension of the core combat gameplay), and has really hammered home my dislike of stat-gates in general.
There was one mission in Dragonfall where it worked really well. The more conversations you passed, the further you could get into the facility (before bullets start flying). Each conversation required either a specific etiquette or a minimum charisma to get by, and that charisma was higher the deeper you went (it's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the general idea). This worked pretty well. But it's very much the exception.
Most of the time you need a fixed charisma or etiquette (or some other random stat) to "win" a conversation (in some cases there's a conversation puzzle either instead of or in addition). And it's like... Okay, I need charisma 6. If I have charisma 2-5, I've basically wasted that karma until I can pull back up to par. If I have charisma 7+, I've at best prematurely invested it. Without any smoothing factor (like a bunch of different gates at different levels within each section), stat-gates tend to be an annoying guessing game.
ZylonBane on 3/10/2015 at 00:57
Quote Posted by Manwe
Option 4: no stats, purely based on player skill like Splinter Cell did (up to Chaos Theory).
That's Option 3.
Shadowcat on 3/10/2015 at 01:18
If I've interpreted it rightly, I basically agree with the article, which says "Mini-games themselves are fine, but shoehorning them into completely disparate experiences is not."
I thought Thief's lock picking was excellent (despite there being very little "game" to it); I didn't like System Shock 2's hacking <em>remotely</em> as much as its predecessor's; and the Pipe Dream hacking in Bioshock felt stupid to me (despite being a <em>much</em> better game than SS2's hacking).
They're just better when they feel like they fit sufficiently well for the suspension of disbelief to be maintained.
Pyrian on 3/10/2015 at 01:59
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
I thought Thief's lock picking was excellent (despite there being very little "game" to it); I didn't like System Shock 2's hacking <em>remotely</em> as much as its predecessor's;
SS2's in particular really doesn't have any skill challenge to it at all; the only important decisions are whether to try at all and whether to risk exploding. I might actually go so far as to classify it as option 2: percentage based on stats.
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
...and the Pipe Dream hacking in Bioshock felt stupid to me (despite being a <em>much</em> better game than SS2's hacking).
I seem to be the only person who liked pipe dream.
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
They're just better when they feel like they fit sufficiently well for the suspension of disbelief to be maintained.
Always helps. Would pipe dream have worked for you if they'd just made them circuits?
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
That's Option 3.
I actually modified 3 to incorporate his 4.
Jason Moyer on 3/10/2015 at 02:41
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
I thought Thief's lock picking was excellent (despite there being very little "game" to it); I didn't like System Shock 2's hacking <em>remotely</em> as much as its predecessor's; and the Pipe Dream hacking in Bioshock felt stupid to me (despite being a <em>much</em> better game than SS2's hacking).
I thought the minigames in TDS and Thi4f were fine as well, although I didn't really mind just choosing a lockpick and having a go at it in TDP/TMA. As far as BioShock goes, I tried to replay it about a year ago and after about the third time I hacked something I was like FUCK THIS. Yet another massive improvement that Jordan's team made when they did BS2.
Shadowcat on 3/10/2015 at 03:26
Quote Posted by Pyrian
Would pipe dream have worked for you if they'd just made them circuits?
I'm trying to envision a re-themed version which makes any sense (obviously we can't have electricity moving slowly), and I do have an impression of something which I think would have improved the feel of it, so... maybe?
It's pretty hard to say offhand if it would have "worked"; but I'll go as far as "worked <em>better</em>" (which isn't to say that something utterly different wouldn't have been much better still, of course).
ZylonBane on 4/10/2015 at 15:01
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
I didn't like System Shock 2's hacking <em>remotely</em> as much as its predecessor's
SS1 and SS2 hacking are not comparable. SS1's hacking is an actual game based entirely on player skill. In SS2 hacking is stat-based, so the "game" is merely a glorified die roll. So what would you rather have had-- the simple minigame we got, or just a popup that said "HACK FAILED" / "HACK SUCCEEDED"? The SS2 minigame exists entirely to make the player feel involved in the hacking process even though it's not a player skill based system.
