By Josh Bycer
The article “To Break or Not to
Break” looks into mastery of complex titles, and players finding the best
methods to play these games and “break” them. It looks at how this can be good
and bad for game design.
With strategy games, more prominently turn based and/or squad based games, they are often designed as a
collection of systems, drawing away from the pull of storyline and narrative,
but more focusing on the player working out how to manipulate these systems to
their advantage. As players work out these advantages, there is a chance that a
point will be hit where the game “breaks”; a tactic or strategy that “renders
the challenge and difficulty of the game moot”. While reaching this will cause
some games to fall apart, some predict the player reaching this point. This
raises the question: “Is game-breaking a good thing?”
FTL
FTW:
FTL is a rogue-like game,
that has the player take control of a ship and crew attempting to warn of an
incoming rebel fleet. Players move through a randomised galaxy before coming up
to the final boss fight. This battle is considered one of the most difficult
parts of FTL, as the player must
fight a much larger, superior ship, but this battle is also considered to be
one of the weakest parts of the game, as it is a set fight.
Through most of the game, the player can build their ship and crew as
they see fit, developing their own tactics, but with the boss fight, players
aren’t so much required to have specific items, but the chances of victory without
those items are slim at best. Once the player knows what items they should
have, the boss fight is broken, as it becomes a matter of more knowing where
and how to obtain the items and upgrades than worrying about the boss itself.
This exemplifies the risk of set systems, and making a game too linear,
as it becomes easier to break the more linear it is. This leaves it more to a
player as a personal choice as to whether to break the game or not, knowing the
risks either side of it.
Key message drawn: The more
linear a game is, the easier it is to break the game. Players must be given
some freedom in most all aspects of gameplay, or a single, dominant strategy
will emerge, and rule out players forging their own, unique tactics.
Tough
Choices in Kings Bounty:
The Kings Bounty series are tactical RPGs on PC, focusing on the
combination of RPG character building and exploration, with the management that
stems from turned based battles. The player builds up an army from a variety of
creatures ready for battle. Kings Bounty tries
to find middle ground between linear and non-linear, by having a set world,
encounters, and quests, but shops determining items and units available are
randomised. This can immediately give the game uneven difficulty, “as certain
troops and spells can make the game very easy.”
Bycer goes on to give an example; “For instance, in Armoured Princess (the second game), I
fought an enemy army that was rated ‘invincible’ compared to my army and came
out on top.” Once a game-breaking tactic has been found, it becomes hard to the
player not to use that tactic, and others like it that prove superior in most
encounters. While it is nice for a player to have a great deal of freedom in a
game, as a designer, you must limit that, or you end up asking “the player to
handicap themselve in order to make your game interesting.”
If players are to be given a great deal of freedom in how to play, “it’s
important to give them freedom in how they are challenged.” Gameplay becomes
more challenging and gratifying when the game is unpredictable, as seen in
games such as Shogun 2: Total War and Crusader
Kings 2. These are games that keep players on their toes by throwing
unexpected challenges at them, ensuring that no one single strategy will always
lead to victory.
Key message drawn: While
freedom can be a wonderful aspect of gameplay, it is important to balance
player freedom with mechanics and AI freedom, otherwise difficulty can become
highly unbalanced, again leading to a dominant strategy when one arises.
Players need to be challenged in multiple ways unexpectedly, to keep their
strategies changing with the flow of the game.
Disgaea’s
Over-powered Design:
Disgaea
has already been outlined in my previous post Reading:
The Secret of Disgaea’s decade-long success . It “is a strategy RPG where
players command and build up a variety of units to do battle.” The series is
noted to be designed with numerous systems meant to break the main game,
including randomised dungeons, leveling up equipment and attaching modifiers,
and more.
Once the player has broken into
these systems and started to understand them, the main game is no longer a challenge,
with players able to brute force through it. The difference with this game is,
the developers expect the player to act in this way. After the main game has
been beaten, players are given extra hard challenges, “that are beyond the
scope of the regular campaign.” But it is at this point that the systems that
broke the main game are now required to proceed. For example, while the
strongest enemy in the campaign is level 100, enemies in the post game
challenges will range into the thousands.
Bycer believes “that this is the
best way of making everyone happy.” Players who simply want to play the base
game without delving into the complicated systems are able to do so, but for
the more hardcore players who want more, it is available to them, allowing
players to define the “completion” of the game themselves. One player may only
pour 20 hours in to complete the main campaign, while another will spend 100+
maximising their army, and completing all that can be completed. It is a game
that can be as deep as the player wants it to be.
Key message drawn: It is possible for a tactical RPG to appeal to
both softcore and hardcore players, the key point is to allow players to
progress deeper into the systems they have been provided, but not to force
players to, as it is not what every player desires from a game, even if a
strategy RPG. Players should be able to break the game if that is their
playstyle, rewarding them further into the game, but should also allow for
players to complete the game without needing to draw on those game-breaking
aspects.
The
Wrong Type of Breaking:
The conclusion briefly
looks into situations where game-breaking goes wrong, by giving the player too
much freedom in a linear game. The first example is Vampire the Masquerade: Blood Lines. This is an action adventure
RPG that follows a linear storyline, allowing players to tackle most challenges
in a couple of manners. The issue is if a player focuses around avoiding combat.
Once they reach the second half of the game, the player is thrown into multiple
boss fights, and combat-heavy situations with no chance of avoiding them. This
means that a character can be ruined before the player even realises it at the
time. To avoid this, it is important that players can either upgrade only
combat skills, or allow them to redistribute skill points, in a linear game, “as
no one wants to throw out twenty hours of playtime because of poor skill
selection.”
“Some of the most complex games
developed belong to the strategy genre. As the designer is not creating a world
or a story, but multiple interconnected systems designed for engaging repeat
play.” Game-breaking can act very much as a double-edged sword, as it can be a
reward for expert players who have worked the game out, but it also doubles as
a sign that the player cannot progress much further in the game, having reached
its limits. Any game-breaking mechanics should be hidden when and where
possible from players, as the discovery of it can kill the thrill of the game.
Bycer goes on to mention X-Com Enemy Unknown, how he was excited
for a new strategy game that could be continuously played, but “the linear
campaign and basic strategy made finding game-breaking tactics easy, to the
point that after beating the game once, I lost all desire to play the game
again.” I highlight this mainly as I felt
the exact same way about this game. The linearity made character progression
and improvement feel stale and forced, and it became too clear too quickly how
best to use my squad of troops, making gameplay feel repetitive and un-engaging.
Games
such as Disgaea which have the act of
game-breaking built into the design of the game are far better options. The
only issue with this is, as the player is not playing “a truly replay-able
strategy game”, but a game that does not have a definitive end. So this raises
the question: “At what point does the player stop playing?”
One of the hardest components of
game design is designing around systems, as it can go in any number of
directions depending on the amount of control given to the player. While it can
be good to bring players in, to keep the game engaging, some times it is best
to give them complete freedom. One key point is to go in the same direction
once you’ve decided how the game will play out. “Linear elements in a non
linear design or vice versa tend to run into design conflicts and are just
another facet for a designer to balance.”
I think that this article has
helped me get to grips a lot more with the balance of player freedom within a
tactical RPG, and has given me something to potentially consider with the
game-breaking. While my final project artifact would not span a long enough
period for players to truly break the game, I must make sure that the initial
design of systems would not allow this further down the road, should the
project be continued, or if it should, how that would be combat by later
gameplay.
Following on from this and my
previous post, I now intend to pick up one of the newer Disgaea games to study first hand.
