Game Design Talk: Forcing Players to Repeat Content

Discussion in 'Games' started by Xylia, Nov 11, 2017.

  1. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    So, here's another game design talk thread of mine.

    Earlier today, I was playing Final Fantasy XIV and I ran into a solo duty that was fairly long, and had multiple instant-failure conditions. I won't go into details as it is current content and I want to avoid spoilers, but the whole duty is nearly 10 minutes long, and at several occasions within, there's the possibility of instantly failing the duty if a certain thing happens. You can, of course, also fail if you outright die from the attacks the boss does, but that's not what I'm talking about, by 'instant fail'.

    If you do fail, you get thrown out of the duty, and have to re-start it, all the way back from the beginning. Well, on my first attempt, I got to about 75% of the way through the duty and I wound up failing because I didn't notice the one instant-fail thingie was about to happen, by the time I noticed, it was too late and there was nothing I could do about it.

    So yaaaaaay, I got sent back to the beginning. Awesome. *sigh*

    On my 2nd attempt, in my frustration, I botched it near the beginning, so yay, at least the long cutscenes are skippable. Good cutscenes, but I don't need to see them multiple times within a few minutes, ne?

    Anyways, I cleared it on my 3rd attempt, though almost failed at the very end (not sure if it is scripted to happen that way or not). I would have been downright pissed if that had happened.

    My point here, is forcing players to replay large portions of the content is usually a terrible idea. NES games were lousy for this back in the day, where you had Lives and Continues. You started from the very beginning of the game, and you were given a finite number of lives, and usually a finite number of "continues". If you lost a life, you returned to (usually) the halfway point of a level, or in some games, you instantly respawned exactly where you died if they were feeling generous.

    Lose all of your lives and you will be asked to Continue or not. If yes, you get sent to the very start of the level (or batch of levels in some games) to replay all of that all over again with a fresh stack of lives.

    This was very harsh, but I can kinda see why it was done -- NES cartridges had, at max, 4MB (and that was only one game, most were <1 MB of storage space on the ROM Cartridge so you had to make use of that stuff as best as you could, which usually meant making the game very difficult to make players dump hours into memorization and practice before they could hope to clear the game. Not all games were like this, mind you, but the trope "NintendoHard" exists for a reason.

    This built Player Frustration up over time, because few players like to replay the same level over and over and over and over again, when there's a whole game of content locked away behind near-perfection. Not only do you have to do it once, you have to do it hundreds of times, and do it consistently to have a hope of progressing further into the game. Sheer repetition at its finest. Some players will bemoan about how those days are gone, but to be honest, there are better ways of doing it and keeping the challenge.

    I will talk about two games who kept difficult gameplay at the core of their games, but yet also got rid of most of the "Replay Content" junk, while at the same time, rewarding players who did well at the game.

    These two games are Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams and They Bleed Pixels.

    Let's talk about the former, first. Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is a platformer that involves a lot of Mario-like gameplay -- you run, jump, and stomp about the levels, avoiding traps, collecting powerups, and collecting diamonds. The levels start off fairly tame, but quickly start getting difficult as you progress into the game, to the point it actually gets NintendoHard. However, unlike NES games, this game has a very lenient checkpoint system and.... infinite lives. Yes, Infinite Lives. Kinda like having a Game Genie back in the day!

    Anyways, the game will give you a ranking when you eventually finish a level: 1 to 5 stars. Collecting all the Diamonds, finishing with less than "X" number of deaths, and IIRC, elapsed time all factor into your ranking. There are also special collectable unlocks found in most levels too. The game rewards the players for doing well, and encourages them to finish as many levels as possible with better rankings. The game will let you get through on 1 star clears, but that abysmal one-star on the map looks like crap and the player feels a compulsion to see if they can't try for two stars this time.... maybe three starts next. Heck, maybe someday, they could even get 5 stars!

    But if they get frustrated with that level, they can just stop and go back to an earlier level and try to 5-star something they had 4-starred previously and when they do... they might find that 5-star is easy compared to trying to get 3-stars in the latest level in their progression. It allows you to select your difficulty by bouncing back and forth between levels. Get more skilled by attacking later levels, and then go back to earlier levels to build confidence. The game doesn't take a huge pole and beat you into the ground for failure. It rewards you for success!

    Now, the other game I mentioned is They Bleed Pixels. This is another platformer, and it does similar things that Giana Sisters does, only it takes this concept of not punishing the player even further.

    Like GS, TBP will give you a ranking based on how you did at the end of each level based upon criteria, like how many times you died, how many enemies you've killed, how many collectibles you picked up, how stylish you were at killing enemies, etc. TBP also uses a very neat checkpoint system where you build up the ability to create a checkpoint by fighting enemies and picking up stuff that you find. When you get enough, you can place a checkpoint by standing still in a safe spot for 3 seconds, and if you die, you restart at that checkpoint.

    The game rewards you for using fewer checkpoints, but yet won't punish you for using them either. You can die as many times as you want, to replay those difficult parts of a level as many times as you need before you pass it.

    And that brings me to my next point: If you're going to place pixel or frame perfect precision into your game, please put a checkpoint before and after it. If used properly, a very precise jump, movement, narrow passage, etc can induce heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat suspense and elation when you finally do manage to do it. However, this can easily be turned into frustration and even discouragement if you have to replay great gobs of content just to get another crack at it, OR, worse, you FINALLY get past it, but die right after that point and now you gotta do it all over again (and who knows how much content you have to repeat before you finally get past it again, to hopefully not die next time).

    So anyways, that's my thoughts on the subject... curious to hear if anybody has anything to add/talk about/etc.
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2017
    D.M.G. and MilkCalf like this.
  2. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Finally got home and finished the post, lol.
     
    MilkCalf likes this.
  3. MilkCalf

    MilkCalf Supernova

    One game I feel does dying well is Shadow of Mordor. When your health is depleted you go into a last chance strugle where you need to complete a quicktime event to evade a final blow. Fail this or get downed three times (or four with a specific rune) and the orc that bested you will come closer with his ugly face and rub it in with a few words. He gets stronger and you respawn with no real hinderance. It feels fair and builds a sort of relationahip with the orcs. Some may say that them getting stronger is a bad thing as they already were good enough to beat you, but I take that as a challenge. You may outnumber him or simply get better at the game. Last night I lobbed off my worst nemesis' head. I felt a little sad. He appeared near the beginning of my recent play through, referred to me as 'little ghul'. He killed me a few times and I killed him a few times. I respected him enough to always end him with minor wounds so he may survive. Rest in peace Kaka Ghul Slayer, you covered your face after I had deformed it but your spear and shield stayed as deadly as the first time I met you.
     
  4. JB_Markowicz

    JB_Markowicz Void-Bound Voyager

    AHEM AHEM, KIRBY STAR ALLIES REPEATING BOSSES, AAAAAAAHEEEEM COUGH COUGH
     
  5. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Megaman did that whole "fight all the bosses again at the end" too, and I don't really view that as being such a bad thing, because it gives the player an opportunity to appreciate how far they've come. Re-doing the bosses again at a higher power level (or a higher skill level as you've gotten to near the end of the game at this point) allows you to feel satisfaction in being able to roflstomp enemies that gave you so much trouble earlier in the game.
     
  6. JB_Markowicz

    JB_Markowicz Void-Bound Voyager

    I just see it as an annoyance, since they're using the same assets, the bosses are harder, but it's mostly 2 new attacks and faster attack rate, but reusing bosses is really unoriginal and i don't feel too much while fighting it again, since i alredy beat that boss, why would i beat it again? The only time i actually liked boss reusing was in Shovel Knight's battle royale, but even then, the fighting still felt a little vague, the way i see bosses is that it should be a good unique experiece with good mechanics, boss repeating just takes out the unique and make it just a boss, like if the epic fight you had before didn't make a difference, cause there he is again, fighting you... again. Still, i like nintendo's idea of X bosses in Mario and Luigi games, which is totally optional.
    I don't disagree completely with boss reusing, i just don't like it when you're forced to do the same battle just cause the creators wanted more gameplay time (which is not the case for shovel knight)
     
  7. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    I suppose it boils down to the game. It felt right in Megaman oddly, though I could see how it could be annoying in some other games. I suppose it also depends upon whether or not the bosses are interesting to fight in the first place; an annoying boss I would probably not want to fight again no matter the reason, lol.

    And if there's some actual lore/gameplay reason as to why you can/should fight the boss again... again, in Megaman, the bosses are robots and you infiltrate the robot leader's castle, well it stands to reason he might have copies of those powerful robot bosses to send at you as a last-ditch effort. That might not work for another game where the bosses are not easily replaceable robots which I could understand some annoyance there.

    It all depends on the game I suppose.
     
  8. Bamboozler

    Bamboozler Space Penguin Leader

    It really varies on a game by game basis. There are normally three ways that a game will 'force' you to repeat content:
    1. Dying or getting 'game over' will spawn you at a location further back (normally the last save point). Think most single player games with a save function.
    2. The game has a 'hardcore' mode which punishes players for dying/losing and will wipe their progress, either completely or mostly. Think Path of Exile or Dark Souls.
    3. The game has a 'rebirth' or 'ascension' feature where completing the game will either unlock a higher difficulty or will reset your character but with some stats kept the same as when you were a higher level. Think of Ragnarok Online or most idle games.

    There isn't a perfect formula to figure out whether or not forcing players to repeat content is a good or bad thing. Every game varies greatly - as do the players needs and wants when looking for a game to play.

    Some players enjoy the thrill of hardcore games as it's high risk, high reward. Only the top percentile of players will be able to finish a hardcore game. Some players prefer only going back to your latest save point when dying as it's safer and stops the risk of the player getting burnt out before completing the game. Some players love replaying a game similar to that mentioned in point 3 due to the fact that there is always something to do and the content never really runs out, at least not for a long time in most cases.

    Personally I love the hardcore environment when playing an MMO and playing games with global leader boards as it gives me a sense of achievement. In saying that I also love games that limit replaying the same concept, usually when playing a game for the story or playing a game in a more casual setting. I also love the rebirth/ascension system as when I find a game I truly love player it stops me from running out of content.

    As for your specific situation I can understand your frustration and would urge you to find other games (possibly ones that fall under a different category on the check list above). At the end of the day what's the point of playing a game if you're not getting anything out of it but frustration and anger?


    Edit: I forgot to mention a 4th check point - games with a minimal amount of levels which are play over and over with different variables. Think MOBA's or most traditional racing games. But this category is a whole other can of worms and I'd rather not edit my entire post to account for it :laugh:
     

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