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Standard Game Mechanics

Postby Adol The Red » Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:44 pm

I'm sure we've all been perplexed at one time or another by the choices game designers make. You start playing a game, and depending on the type you expect to be able to do a certain thing, and you're very surprised when you can't. Some things shoud just be in certain types of games. Now, I'm not saying that all games should be the same, and of course not every mechanic applies to every game. And it goes without saying that this is more opinion than anything. At any rate, here are a few things I think should be standard by now, barring system limitations or barriers inherent to a games design. Of couse creating a good game comes first, but if these things can be fit in place without breaking the game, then they should be. Again, just my opinion.

New Game + Not every game will benefit from it like Chrono Trigger, but I find games lacking a new game + in this day and age, especially RPGs, to be a little absurd. Sure, you can't always have a prefect transfer of all stats and items like in Chrono Trigger, but that's okay. You can have limitations on your New Game +, like not transferring special items and such. The first Mana Khemia, which is an item creation JRPG, allowed you to transfer only stats so you wouldn't have the items you weren't supposed to have ahead of time. Mana Khemia 2 ammended this by allowing you to transfer items, but if you had to make a certain one at a certain time as required by the story, then you still had to actually make it at least once, even if you had the item in your inventory. If there are more available characters to recruit than can fit in your party I still don't think it would cost too much memory to save the stats of the characters you used, even if you don't recruit them again. I'm thinking of Star Ocean with that comment. I feel almost defeated by those games (at least the first 2, not sure about the others) not having a New Game + because aside from the main ending you also get character specific endings, and having more characters than you can recruit in one playthrough means multiple playthroughs. Now, if anyone has played a TriAce game, you know what an endeavor that would be. And of course action games could benefit as well, allowing you to play through with upgraded abilities and equipment and such. Any story limitaions, like a boss you're not supposed to be able to beat, can be handled in multiple ways. I've played games that even when I win they just act like I lost, or they could get creative and have you win, but have some circumstance provide the same outcome. There are many ways around any potential problems caused by having a new game + that I think any game with any kind of upgrading or stat growth would at least add some replay value by adding in a the feature. Perhaps not right for all games, but worth considering for a lot of games that come out now.

Local Multiplayer I may have said I'm not huge into multiplayer, but that's not entirely true. I just prefer to be in the same room as the person I'm playing with. I sort of feel like there was a while there where game designers just up and forgot that people used to actually bother to be in the same room when playing together. Thankfully it feels like we're coming out of that phase, slowly and surely. Now this is no knock against online multiplayer, and some multiplayer games just aren't set up to be played locally, but I have seen a few that would work well in split screen but were online multiplayer only. And speaking of split screen, doesn't the advent of wide screen TVs being the norm mean that side by side split screen is at least worth looking into? I don't know, maybe it just doesn't quite work right. I know I wasn't a fan of the sort of offset side by side thing FEAR 3 did, but then again, I've never felt like the top and bottom split screen was exactly comfortable. Still, it never stopped me from having fun while shooting at things with friends. Now maybe some engines just don't work for it, and maybe they just don't have time on the dev schedule to implement it, but if it can be done, it's worth doing. I mean, I'm not trying to be rediculous here. These things just feel like common sense to me. And speaking of common sense...

Let me see the effect a new piece of equipment will have before I buy it Certainly this one is rare, but all the more infuriating on the rare occasions I do run into it. And usually when I do I just have to hit a button to bring up the details. Of course, designers normally add a "Hit X for more details" box somewhere when that's the case. I write this for when they either don't have the option, or have it but don't tell you. I mean, come one. Hey, cool sword. Its expensive. That could mean its better than the one I have. Sure wish I could tell. Yeah, there's just no excuse for this one.

Multiple save slots Two of my best friends are married, and share a lot of their handheld games. Unless of course the game only has one save slot. Why? Well, who knows. Maybe they don't want you sharing, because then you buy more copies. Or, you know, you just pass on the game. Okay, I didn't mean this post to sound so negative. These last two just chap my hide. You'd have to have some really unique mechanics to really justify having only one save slot to me.

Multiple Save Profiles I've played a few games (Wet, Dragon's Dogma) where starting a new game deletes your saved information. Why can't I just have multiple profiles? There was no problem doing this before the current generation, so why is there one now? Maybe I want to experiment with multiple characters or classes. Or maybe I just got a game and I want to lug it over to my friends' house and show the opening. Having multiple profiles for saving would be an easy fix to a problem that shouldn't really exist.

Okay. That ended up being more of a complaint fest than I intended. I was actually just going for a positive topic to just discuss what mechanics we feel should be normal in relevant games by now. Some of those are just bothers I guess I had to get off my chest. I'm sure I have more, but I don't want to whine any more than I already have. And like I said before, I'm sure that some of the time there are good reasons for why these things aren't done. I don't claim to know how game engines work or what kind of deadlines the development teams are under, and I know that sometimes things just don't work, but I'm sure there are plenty of times things could be implemented and just aren't.

Anyway, just wondering what else you think should be normal mechanics for games (at least where the mechanic applies), or when you've ran into a game that perplexed you by lacking a mechanic that is already considered normal.
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Re: Standard Game Mechanics

Postby Pie » Sat Jul 28, 2012 6:52 pm

I've been thinking about and wanting to reply to this post for a long time, but just haven't had the time. I think the topic is so compelling, inspiring, and exciting. I think I really love the idea of discussing game mechanics, what we think are good and bad ideas and how they affect, improve, or modify game play. I'm a bit disappointed that more people haven't replied off this post, but to each his own, right? Thank you Adol for posting this awesome post! XD I hope I can get to this soon... some day. =x
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Re: Standard Game Mechanics

Postby RollCasket » Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:25 pm

Holy CRAP D= I remember reading this but not having the time to reply cause yeah there's a lot in here, but then I somehow forgot about it x.x Thanks for bumping it back up Pie =P

New Game +
Well obviously with my love for Chrono Trigger I love me some NG+ though I wouldn't always want it in every game cause it just doesn't work the same for everything. Personally, I kinda like the Tales series implementation where you sorta choose what "features" you want in your NG+ to make it easier, harder, or just more efficient. I don't much like the "grinding for grade" portion of that (as some things cost WAY too much grade), but I'm talking the basic idea of it I like a lot, if maybe balanced better/differently.

Local Multiplayer
This is kinda funny cause me and Farore just recently played some 4 player Boom Blox Bash Party with one of her co-workers and the Nesta and it was a lot of fun (seriously, that game is great). I think the Wii especially is great for local multiplayer but as we grow up instances in which you have the opportunity to bust out some multiplayer games are pretty thin sadly. Though once Bearpie are settled here in Vegas we'll have to steal them for some gaming sessions /gg

Equipment Comparison
Don't really have a lot to say about this other than I very much agree that it's annoying when games don't have this feature. Personally, I don't think there's any excuse these days, everyone has seen it in action, put it in your damn game =P

Multiple save slots/profiles
Also agree as me and Farore share games sometimes and before that me and the Nesta did as well. Rarely had an issue with the profiles thing, but I'll one-up it and say it'd be nice to see the "cloud saves" thing more fully implemented and with all consoles/services. Obviously that's a newer thing but it'll be nice when it's more the standard. Console exploded? Just re-d/l your games and saves, boom!

Had to kinda rush-post as I gtg in for a graveyard shift, blah =P
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Re: Standard Game Mechanics

Postby Adol The Red » Sun Jul 29, 2012 11:34 am

I'm glad this has grabbed some interest at least. For me this comes up more when a game doesn't do something that's obvious by now. I agree that NG+ isn't right for everything, but I think more games could benefit from it than use it. At least any game with some kind of stat growth and multiple endings. I was never the biggest fan of the grade system because of the grinding you mentioned, but I'll give a huge exception to Tales of Graces. Instead of getting grade for battles, you get grade for performing certain things in the game. Stuff like mastering abilities and titles, completing side quests, etc. I found that one good trip through the game with some time spent mastering titles got me enough grade to get all the stuff I really wanted and a few things extra, so I really like how they went about it with Graces and kind of hope they stick to that formula.

Another thing I can add is for remakes, and while this isn't a game breaker it still would be pretty cool. Alexx and another friend got the Wii virtual console version of Turtles in Time (at least I'm pretty sure that's the one) just to have something to play through when we're bored on saturday and it somehow isn't Tetris time. Anyway, they enjoy the game, but had complaints about the remade soundtrack. Apparently the designers went out of their way to bastardize all of the songs, or at least I gather as much by their comments. Now, a lot of remakes with new music will still have an option for the old music; I can cite Ys I & II Chronicals, which has three generations of soundtrack, and Cave Story as examples to this. So it seems to me that if you're going to remake a game that probably has nostalgia for a lot of gamers, and you're going to do a new soundtrack, you might want to fit the old soundtrack in as an option. Again, not a game breaker, but probably a good idea.
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Re: Standard Game Mechanics

Postby RollCasket » Sun Jul 29, 2012 4:00 pm

UGH...that changed soundtrack for me was a deal breaker =P Which is funny cause I'm pretty sure I still have the snes cart of Turtles in Time still. It's not just that they decided to change already great music, they changed it with awful music >.> Well, maybe not totally awful, but I noticed it immediately when I started playing and was disappointed and regretted buying it >.>

But yeah, that's why I was saying the idea of the grade system, basically buying the features you want in the next playthrough. Some of the Tales games at least there was an easy way to grind it up but it still wasn't fun =P I haven't gotten to beat Graces f yet though but that sounds like a good method of putting it in.
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Re: Standard Game Mechanics

Postby Tehwilburforce » Sun Jul 29, 2012 11:16 pm

New game + is cool and all, but what about an extra game that continues the story a bit, like with The Answer in Persona 3. I haven't played it yet, but I'm glad it's included because I get to play more of the game and experience a bit more of the characters I've grown to love even after beating the main part of the game.

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Re: Standard Game Mechanics

Postby RollCasket » Mon Jul 30, 2012 3:02 am

Well they kinda already have that in a lot of games wilbur, as DLC or expansions lol. P3 Fez is kinda like the game + DLC added on disc. Sadly the PSP ver doesn't have The Answer included...and no "mass destruction" for battle music =\
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Re: Standard Game Mechanics

Postby Adol The Red » Mon Jul 30, 2012 9:12 am

Extra post game stuff is definately cool where it fits.
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Re: Standard Game Mechanics

Postby Tehwilburforce » Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:35 am

One thing that's gotten me frustrated over the last few years is when a game only has a save location in certain areas that you have to run around and find, rather than on the pause menu. Sometimes, it works, but other times it gets old really fast. I'd much rather have the convenience of saving anywhere to continue my game later than having to trek through an entire dungeon to get to the next save marker and possibly dying and having to start way back behind where I died.

One feature I love that alleviates this is, of course, auto-saving. Whenever I see that a game has auto-save, I want to run out and hug the designer and call them the smartest person ever for doing something that should really be a no-brainer for all developers. Checkpoint systems, especially, are great, because they let you pick right from where you left off, often not forcing you to start from a town nearby to where you saved.

Also, I'd like to post a video here about tutorials, because I think loading screens with button maps are becoming too common these days.

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Re: Standard Game Mechanics

Postby Trez » Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:13 pm

Pausing the Game at anytime

You would figure that an option to pause the game at any time should be very standard, but there are some games that do not allow you to pause in battles or doing cut scenes. I often need to run away from my television to answer the phone, check on food, etc., so I sometimes find myself deciding among the following choices:

1) Eating burnt food
2) Dying in game
3) Restarting, in order to watch a full cutscene /heh

Luckily, most games can be paused at any time.

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