10 Modern Game Design Trends that Hurt Longevity

[@NAP8X]

“Developers, stop listening to fans.” I wish artists across all mediums were more willing to tell fans to fuck off sometimes.

[@gh0rochi363]

The issue is they listen to people who aren't fans.

[@commandershepard9920]

@@gh0rochi363 No, the issue is they listen to anyone period. Seriously. Let artists create their own art.

[@MasterDecoy1W]

@@commandershepard9920 You assume there are genuine artists left in the industry. The problem isn't fans on forums, the call is coming from inside the house. Inmates are running the asylum. Of course, that's yesterday's news; a salient observation from 10 or so years ago. Nowadays there are other, more pressing problems, but people rarely want to confront them...

[@seagullphilosopher2173]

​@commandershepard9920 agreed except not all games are art, just like not all novels reach the level of art, genre fiction exists of course. The problem is increasingly that very few games these days have that aspiration to be an artistic work. At least outside of indie games anyway. I sympathise though because games are so expensive to make now, at least mainstream ones, so they get so drowned in the metrics of success that what they produce is very much just a tick box of previously well received features and styles.

[@XX-sp3tt]

Would you be saying that if YOU were the fan they said that to for you not liking them for adding hypothetically micro transactions to a single player game?

[@darkridearts]

One thing you neglect to consider is if the game designers even care if players finish the game, let alone play it more than once. So many modern games are so bloated and outstay their welcome, I can't imagine ever playing them again.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah I think that is true ha, as sad as that is. I think because so many games are so massive and plodding these days, a lot of devs probably don't even worry about if the game is repayable or not. I remember my first run into this phenomenon was the game Gun on the Xbox. It was so narrative focused that the gameplay and replay-ability factor was pretty much zero, but it didn't seem like the devs cared that much.

[@darkridearts]

@TheElectricUnderground oh yeah I remember that game. I couldn't articulate at the time what was wrong with it, but you've said it clearly.

[@Phisherman10]

This is definitely true with modern Zelda. I played BoTW when it came out and there’s no way I’d ever go back to that game, where I’ll play Oot or Majoras at least once every couple of years.

[@mishikomishiko9088]

​@@Phisherman10 the same is with the Elden Ring here. Wohn't play it ever again. Don't care about the DLC either

[@JustFun-ho6qy]

Well, I got more than a hundred hours worth of quality entertainment out of both Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild. Not gonna play them again anytime soon, but I also think that is perfectly fine.

[@futurecoplgf]

A combo of the first two points: while everyone loves to praise the ingenuity of the 'hidden load times' through scripted events like crawling through a crack in the wall, the problem is that now the developer has baked in an unremovable loading time that is not affected by future higher processing power! There are loads of retro games I love to play that flow so much better because their previously long loading times are reduced to practically zero nowadays. But all these newer games coming out nowadays with scripted loading will not benefit in the same way: they will remain frozen in time, and so will the player!

[@danpoe4166]

Personally I prefer good old cutscenes or even loading screens telling me precisely how much time I have so I could do something while waiting. Instead of being simultaneously engaged and disengaged

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Exactly Future! A simple example of this is in Red Dead Revolver where they made cutscenes that play during the loading screens. Clever idea in the ps2 days. Except now when you play the game on emu or backwards comparability, the loading screens still take forever because the cutscenes will need to play to advance into the level. There are a lot of examples of this that don't need to exist anymore on modern hardware that will continue to cut load times (which is great).

[@FirstPlace97]

I had just talked about this point recently. I loathe the "hidden" load screen, with horrible examples like the one you highlight. I miss the art of true load screens, such as being able to enter into tutorial mode in Bayonetta. Due to optimization of older titles, loads are almost obsolete now, so you can't even enter the tutorial in Bayo anymore, which is a mixed result. But when there are load screens, there's nothing wrong with letting them play out, as mini playable sections, the ability to spam the attack buttons like in DMC3, or as title cards with nice backgrounds or hints. If you have to crawl through a hole for 20sec, that's a terrible way to mask a load.

[@MGrey-qb5xz]

ah like old elder scroll games and stuff like mass effect's elevator.

[@MGrey-qb5xz]

@@FirstPlace97 you couldn't use mini games in loading screens cause in 1995 Namco Bandai (then Namco Ltd) filed for a patent which gave them ownership of the idea of a loading screen minigames.

[@psymagearcade]

A lot of games seem to struggle with the idea of choices having significant, irreversible consequences. Not just action games but especially RPGs are affected by this nowadays. There's this fixation with allowing players to do everything they want on the first playthrough. In reality, if you do everything, you've done nothing meaningful. Players are discouraged from thinking critically as they're playing, and there's almost no real replay value after that first playthrough.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

yes I've noticed this trend as well. I think the sandbox style design of open world games has pretty much infected all other genres to where now if the player can't do everything and have everything on the first play-through, then that's a flaw in the game design or something. Just look at Fire Emblem. It used to be that if the character died in the campaign that character would stay dead, which was one of the coolest features of the series. But now perma-death is only limited to the higher difficulty modes, which I think diminishes the feel of the game that it's core premise can be opted out of by the average player.

[@justtmw]

Ah yes, the so called "Bethesda moment"

[@bytetapestry]

That's just a proper reaction to game length ballooning up. If a 40-minute game has a branching path, nobody is going to complain. If your game takes 100 hours and then has some missable area that effectively asks you to play 100 hours again, that's just insulting.

[@topsekret2679]

@@TheElectricUnderground To be fair, modern Fire Emblem has a separate toggle for perma-death that is independent of difficulty. So you can choose to play with or without perma-death on any difficulty. But I agree with you in that it is much more fun to play with perma-death. Since that forces you to play more carefully and strategically to avoid losses. On the subject of Fire Emblem, one change they made to make things more accessible on the first play through is removing the limit on support conversations. It used to be that a character could only have 5 support conversations in a single play through. So from a gameplay standpoint, you had to pick a small set of units you wanted to get support bonuses from. You could choose to get two units up to A rank at the cost of 3 conversations and make that pair of units really powerful together, or you could have 5 C rank supports with different units to make your pairs a bit more flexible, but at the cost of not making any single pair extremely powerful. But now there is no limit to supports so you can max them all out for all your characters in a single play through. They probably did that so people wouldn't feel like they were missing out on character development from support conversations, so it is a benefit for the story, but it did come at the expense of an interesting gameplay choice. Maybe the way to get the best of both worlds would be to not put a limit on conversations, but still have a limit on which supports actively give you combat bonuses, and you'd be able to change them at the beginning of the map when setting up your team.

[@ghostface5559]

It's on purpose. They want fomo so you buy but they feel if you have FOMO in game you'll be furious and quit

[@pwnswoggle]

I’m a senior designer at a medium sized studio, worked on a range of games and I agree with a lot of what you said but the problem is games are so expensive and have so much competition now that the people funding them are forcing a lot of these practices. The other issue I’m seeing is that a lot of younger designers have either come from design schools(which are usually terrible) or don’t have a wide knowledge of games outside of the mainstream where these practices have now been in place since the mid 360/PS3 days when these designers were either kids or teenagers. It’s not like film students who go back to the classics, a lot of designers only know newish games or indies. To be honest I’m incredibly frustrated a lot of the time but I don’t have the money to fund my own stuff and jobs in this industry are hard to come by so yeah.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

I am interested on seeing what kind of concept you got in your mind. It is kinda sad to be forced to follow a group where you really dont agree.

[@magicjohnson3121]

All you need is just one successful game that breaks all the trends and everyone will copy it.

[@crawlingamongthestars3736]

Yep, so basically the problems stem from money and technology, and the simultaneous greed and complacency that both create, and since this has been the norm for a while now in Western society, it's all the younger generations know, thus the cycle will likely perpetuate itself. Looks like "the old guard" is a dying breed, sadly. Technology is creating a dystopia right before our eyes, it would seem...

[@SpidersSTG]

@@magicjohnson3121That is the cycle though, isn’t it? Dark Souls broke, now every game cribs from From and has no idea what made it good or special in the first place. 80s shmups, 90s platformers, 00s FPS, 10s Souls, pseudo-RPG elements (don’t know what game started that nonsense lol), 20s Stardew Valley “cozy”, etc.

[@ExeErdna]

The problem I noticed is that a lot of people funding games are also funding other games. So they're competing versus themselves. That's why everything is mirroring trends that been died off and just seem out of touch. This is also how I realized sometimes they're sabotaging games so another one will succeed because they assume the money will flow to that one yet these days they're just burning money because they're all failing outside of niche titles

[@CoooolRocks]

Your videos are at their best when you deep dive on topics you’re interested in without putting people down. The more you go for the “and they’ll all eat it up” or start name calling those who don’t agree with you, the harder it is to want to hear what you have to say, even if I agree with you, which I usually do. This was a good video. Even when talking about the fan bases, you kept it cool. Good points. More of this please.

[@user-nt1yb5kr8x]

I personally hate elementary school level puzzles in M rated games. If the title is aimed at 18+ why am I matching simple symbols or colour matching to progress?? I only respect Silent Hill 3 for it's puzzle difficulty. Its not just respectful of the adult brain capability but it also has difficulty options for those that struggle.

[@magicjohnson3121]

Remember that puzzle that you had to know Shakespeare to get? Hard-core stuff.

[@Layazeroda]

Rated M for Most people

[@colind9533]

I enjoyed all the points you made. Regarding adaptive difficulty, I believe part of the reason is due to “backlog anxiety”. So many gamers these days seem to view games as a chore, as something they have to get through. So many do not take the time to understand or master a game’s combat system because they are thinking about the next game on their list long before finishing their current game. So they lower the difficulty, fly through the game, and check it off their backlog so they can repeat the process with the next game.

[@elchinor460]

the ps2 berserk game has no downtime with its infinite enemies, making you struggle like guts in the manga at night no stop

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Is that game good? I've never played it but I should check it out as I'm a big beserk fan and it always looks kinda interesting.

[@wonderwonka1774]

@@TheElectricUnderground The game is flawed but fun, i highly recommend it. The only issue i had with the game is that the maps were huge for an action game with infinite enemy spawn... i get it why they did it though, to make you feel dreadful just like Guts. Also the game has the best feeling of swordplay of any berserk game i've ever played. it also has the triangle fatalities just like ninja gaiden. you can dismember monsters as well. The game also has a weird cinematic counter system which is unique for a ps2 game (works best for bosses). Your moveset also changes based on your character levels (dont worry they are just 3 or 4 levels i think xD) +you can also unlock boss rush mode (with a timer), and arena challenge mode. The game is not the deepest action game ever, but its a fun time to be had if you're a berserk fan. The game also got translated recently by some fans, you can find the game patched iso on cdromance. I forgot to tell you that the berserker armor in this game is F*qqin NUTS!!

[@jimjohn6520]

​@@wonderwonka1774 worth $33 on ebay?

[@franciscor390]

It's crazy how they never localized that specific PS2 entry considering how good it is was.

[@Lyoh_]

The part about progression is really interesting because "progression for progession's sake" feels like it falls under what some might call "extrinsic progression/motivation", where the progression is purely material (new items, new moves ,etc). On the other side is something called intrinsic progression, where the progression comes from within, from your own improvement at the game, like learning new setups and combos with a fighting game character.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

"How dare you belittle the good game design of modern AAA games and indies inpisred by big games. Leave the multimillion dollar companies alone!!!"

[@MarquisDeSang]

what about "modern audience"? There are people who prefer their games "uglified"

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

@@MarquisDeSang I dont know where they really belong to. I guess they are just invasive species??

[@MarquisDeSang]

@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 Our Islam brothers will free them

[@jimjohn6520]

​@@MarquisDeSang and we need to celebrate that with an entire month.

[@metaphysicalmadman8244]

I think a better word for your concept of entropy is urgency: you have to keep moving and playing, and play well because there are consequences if you don't move or play when you need to (Majora with the three days, the timer system and dying once you run out, etc)

[@Bluesine_R]

Yeah, entropy is already a difficult concept to understand, it’s mostly related to probability and how many microstates are contained within a macrostate of a physical system. I know it is kinda related to the flow of time, since the total entropy of a closed system always increases over time, but I don’t know if it was the best word to use for this game design concept.

[@ncrtrooperscout]

A good example of how data driven balance has negatively effected modern multiplayer games can seen in Rainbow Six Siege and Dead By Daylight (I think). The devs go like "oh this operator/character has a high pick rate, we need to nerf them" but don't know the context and or don't ask if they're pick rate is so disruptive to the balance of their games.

[@todesziege]

The trend to replace actual designing with statistics-keeping is very unfortunate and leads to blander games.

[@wawztzta8296]

lfg this guy has like the only original opinions on this site

[@jackmulligan3922]

I’ve been playing games for 40 years and his insight has completely changed the way I play games

[@jaguartony]

he is GMTK for grown ups

[@jerm5466]

Agreed - and I disagree with him on a number of things but damn if he isn’t one of the only critics actually worth listening to. Great channel

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thanks so much my dude!!! I do strive to make original and interesting vids so i'm really happy that's coming through :-)

[@Mingodough]

Nope, he steals his ideas from bog hog

[@RizaBochiza]

I hope this doesn't sound sarcastic, but I love videos like this. You've got this guy saying, "make your games more punishing." While Jonathan Blow is saying, "I never want to punish my players." I just love hearing different perspectives on game design.

[@Peremptor]

The problem is games as mainstream entertainment. Anything mainstream basically has to be braindead easy to 'play'. The core design of these 'games' is to make the 'player' feel like he's playing a game that basically plays itself. Otherwise these 'gamers' are just going to veg out to regular non interactive media entertainment which is basically just as 'engaging'.

[@angelnobody7137]

Yeah... The thing is videogames weren't mainstream but wii, mobile games, xbox vs playstation war attracted too many casual people to the community

[@chozochiefxiii3298]

I appreciate that metroid games (2d and 3d) never hold up a player with knowledge on future playthroughs. Aside from loading elevators, if you know where to go and what to do, there's nothing stopping you. Even on first playthroughs, most metroid games don't have very scripted setpieces its just the player being allowed to explore at their own pace. I know it's not arcade level constant action, but I appreciate that the designers do not hinder me on my repeat playthroughs.

[@stanislavkimov2779]

Word I'd use for many modern games is ''sanitized". Trying to "balance" everything looking at numbers, forgetting games should be art. Modern games often feel just like standard media products to consume to kill time, out of habit.

[@matheuszache7943]

Great analysis, but I do have some caveats to it. The downtime and micromanaging the pacing isn't something I have trouble with tbh. I think the issue here is that modern day devs don't give meaningful downtime, it's just walking simulator so to speak. To explain what I mean by this, take GoW 2 vs GoW 2018. Both combats were made by the same guy and they roughly operate on very similar principles. What differentiates GoW 2 from it's modern day version is how the 2018's downtime is simply rowing a boat and climbing stonewalls, which is basically just moving and tilting the analog stick mindlessly. GoW 2's downtime isn't as engaging as the combat, nor should be, but it doesn't numb you out, rather than stretches different "mechanical muscles" from your brain. Finished your combat, here's a small puzzle to do. Beat a sub boss, go through this traversal/platform area. You are still engaged but not 120%, and I think it's a good thing especially because you can balance the tone of such challenges. A lesser, easier combat arena can be balanced out by a harder more unforgiving platforming section and vice versa (like GoW 2 does in the Atlas section). Overall managing downtime isn't the issue for me, much so than the laziness in which this downtime is implemented. Saving the player's focus is a good way to pay off big moments too. I think there's some value to that. I can't imagine a developer thinking "Nah, if he wants to stop just pause the game" lmao.

[@thohillesland]

I wanna point out when you talked about Fighting games at 120fps, and especially related to rollback netcode. While it would be super cool to have unlocked frame rates in fighting games, this also absurdly difficult to achieve! Since online netcode in fighting games is peer to peer and not server based, it means that the game HAS to be fully deterministic in order to not cause desyncs. One of the biggest enemies against determinism in computers is floating point numbers (decimal numbers), because different CPUs handle decimal numbers slightly differently. How tradishonally unlocked framerates work is by multiplying all game logic by a time delta (how much time the last frame took to complete), which almost always results in decimal numbers. This method just won't work for a fully deterministic fighting game. It definitely is possible to get an unlocked framerate in a online multiplayer fighting game, its just way more complicated and would take lots of work in order to make it work. And right now the amount of people who care about it and actually owns a 120hz monitor is too small for it to actually be worth the huge effort.

[@todesziege]

A locked 120 wouldn't be unlocked, though, or am I missing something? It would just be a different, fixed number and shouldn't run into that beehive of issues. It's also evenly divisible by 60 so a downconversion should be pretty straightforward.

[@Gensolink]

imo one potential problem is that fighting games have their moves counted in frames so if a game is at 120 would a 1 frame button be 0.5 ? IMO that just sounds like a can of worm not worth opening atm

[@virgyvirgil]

even if i dont always agree 100% with your conclusions i think your videos are defintely a breath of fresh air and focus on other aspects of games most reviewers dont even talk about at all. ie the way how you explained how bad the swaying is in the re4 remake as a huge fan of the og and feeling kinda meh on the remake i feel like you might be the only reviewer ive seen focus on these aspects as others had nothing but praise for the remake

[@Gnidel]

Lack of downtime is a reason why I love to return to certain retro games. I know that even if they last 40 minutes, those minutes will be densely packed with around 7 distinctly different levels, when in many modern games there could be so many cutscenes, "just hold forward" moments and tutorial popups within that time that they overshadow gameplay itself. Then I play Chip & Dale 2, Sonic 2 or Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3 and it's just quick level to quick level.

[@kasperk.651]

Chip & Dale 2's bosses have tons of downtime for some reason

[@todesziege]

This is why it's so unfair to compare game length of older/arcade games with modern games. "Oh, it's over in like one hour" (if you savescum/rewind/creditfeed) -- yeah but those minutes/hours are not equivalent. I'll have dodged and killed 200 enemies before the modern game is through the loading screens! There'll a new level, with new elements, every few minutes! This mindset incentives creating bloated, drawn-out slogs made up of mostly filler, and people applaud them for it. Sad!

[@ExeErdna]

The only place downtime works is during key retro games like shoot'em ups, fighting and beat'em ups. Where beating a "stage" you got a moment as your score was rounded it and you were rewarded right before getting back into it. How they have 5-10mins if not more between action sections really soured some games. Like how people refuse to play MGS4 because it's downtime is like an hour....

[@todesziege]

@@ExeErdna If there's at least story development, like cutscenes (even if I think most games should cut down on their rambling) then that's at least something. But often it's just _nothing_ - climb a ladder or stairs, ride an elevator, push through a door... You might have some idle dialogue but rarely anything that needed to be said.

[@angelnobody7137]

I follow you because this dude understands that gameplay mechanics and pacing is the most important thing in a videogame. I am not part of that group that developers try to attract anymore, I don't identified with casuals and I don't buu games just for being good looking or popular anymore, I want to have fun, I want a challenge, I want to struggle and win or lose, not to spend 8-30 hours watching a movie with my controller in hands or a replacement of my social, sexual and work life.

[@angelnobody7137]

Also I would add to the list SIZE the reason why I have a lot of roms is because of their size, I am not interested in preserve games like ark which size is up to 500gb

[@c1T4DeL]

You are one of the only people worth listening to when it comes to what the actual problems with games are.

[@doclouis4236]

Are they really problems tho if they are very specific design choices that some developers have made for the sake of better quality of life for the game instead of making every game like an arcade game where if you don't out pace the timer or get hit once, it's game over and you need to start from the beginning of the game.

[@magicjohnson3121]

​@@doclouis4236Quality of life not quality of long life.

[@kuku7732]

@@doclouis4236agreed. By that metric Half Life would be a failure

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thanks so much! I try to give a lot of thought to the design elements of the games I appreciate, and I've noticed that a lot of them are starting to evaporate in favor of the trends I talk about in the vid, and not only as a matter of taste among devs, but often because devs these days think these new trends are an improvement over classic design.

[@c1T4DeL]

​@doclouis4236 Well, I can't disagree with that in some ways, but it's an extreme example. Is there not something between an endless slog of "narrative" that amounts to little (if any) gameplay, and a gameplay-centric game that one shots even the most seasoned players? Edit: My response earlier was needlessly confrontational. The bottom line for me: "some developers have made...for the sake of better 'QoL'", the definition of "quality" just isn't the same. This video already laid it out in some cases: "game devs" of this day simply lack the experience or the capacity to create satisfying mechanics that were intuitively implemented in the old days. Every time I go back to an "old game" I have fun. Why? Because it's simply fun. It was a diversion that was created with passion, not to try and sell me some political message. Fun is a true and objective thing, but none of the talentless hacks in charge of VG studios these days have any idea what that means.

[@herebedragon]

I really doubt fighting games will go to 120 fps anytime soon. computers keep time by counting frames, it's not so simple to design around dynamically calculating between person A's computer specs and person B's and expect gameplay to be consistent for different players across different hardware. when talking about modern 4k/8k/next year's thing game design, hardware limitations are still a thing. not everyone is buying a new rig every year

[@lamegamertime]

I agree, if we're talking about "artistic choice" I feel like frame rate should be counted with that.

[@Zetact_]

Also framerate is part of the fighting game audience's muscle memory and in collective vocabulary. Doubling to 120 would not only mean developers would need to fiddle with the game under the hood just to keep that muscle memory intact on an execution level by modifying input buffers but that fighting game players would need to essentially code switch when talking about frame data because they'd need to understand, like, "+4 in some games is +2 in other games." Some fighting game players have difficulty switching between "cardinal direction and numpad notation" so imagine having to alternate your frame data reading with nothing to go off of other than just knowing which games are running at 120.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I don't think any of the legacy fighting games will leave the 60fps standard anytime soon. They're much more concerned with graphical quality over performance (and I can understand why). BUT I do think fairly soon we will see indie fighting games experimenting with this idea more likely. How it will happen, when it does eventually happen (if fighting games manage to hang on long enough) is that 120 fps or higher will start in a niche indie fighting game and then eventually make its way into the mainstream games. This is exactly what happened with roll back netcode.

[@dominiccasts]

@@Zetact_ I think at that point we'd have to start talking in terms of milliseconds rather than frames, since likely that will be how it would have to work under the hood to handle variable frame rates anyway, and there wouldn't really be another standard measure of time to use. Granted that seems unwieldy, talking about a 5 frame starter compared to a 12 frame heavy attack or a 24 frame overhead gives a much better intuition of scale than an 80ms starter vs a 200ms heavy attack or a 400ms overhead, though I guess if we used centiseconds instead it somewhat sidesteps the problem (8 vs 20 vs 40)

[@SpidersSTG]

No they don’t. Computers have clocks. Logic is either tied to the frame or tied to the clock, thus “uncapped” frame rates.

[@Nerffie15]

If you're interested in entropy in game design, you should look into a game called Unsighted. It's a game where not only the player, but all of the NPCs have limited lifespans and while you can find ways to extend their lives, you still have that pressure of mortality on everyone in the world if you want to do things or interact with them.

[@SpidersSTG]

“The thing a lot of these critics and game developers don’t seem to understand is legacy skill.” Subtle, but SAVAGE!

[@Tassio106]

to be fair, if intentionally dying in Dark Souls would lower the difficulty, the game would be so much worse. There are already plenty of ways to "lower the rank" the rank on dark souls: grinding, summon, npc interaction, specific weapons, and on some bosses there are even ways to outright cheese it. All of those are directly related to player's action/interaction

[@thefebo8987]

Sure. Perma death/Game Over (3 Lifes) is the way to go with Rank.

[@Tassio106]

@@thefebo8987 I kinda wish more games would push more for a perma death feature these days, only problem is that every major game feels way too bloated, like they need to be 15+ hours to be worth the money. I've been playing Doom (2016) on ultra nightmare for this exact challenge, but there are a lot of game design elements that starts to fall apart when you try that on modern games, even with those that claim to be old school inspired like doom.

[@chozochiefxiii3298]

​@Tassio106 Please go in detail, I'm very curious. Most people I've seen complete ultra nightmare relish the challenge. Aside from game length making perma death frustrating, I'm curious what other design choices hinder the experience for you.

[@magicjohnson3121]

​@@chozochiefxiii3298 permadeath works well for short games( over 1 hour in length is probably too long) . No way would it work I modern bloated game design.

[@chozochiefxiii3298]

@magicjohnson3121 People seem to enjoy it in fire emblems, so maybe it's more so per genre basis than just game length? I understand game length for sure. Just seems to be popular in some longer games.

[@HeroOfLegend115]

I am constantly thinking about the precious "first playthrough" idea. I think some of the problem is wanting to appeal to people who have the mindset of "I beat that game, no reason to play it again." If I play through a game and like it, but never feel the need to play it again, I just can't consider that to be one of my favorite games. There are too many classics that I can turn on and play over and over again.

[@AwakenedPhoenix309]

A big part of the problem is reviewers who don't actually like games and are happiest when the experience completes itself as well as treating games like they are disposable so you can finish them as quickly as possible and move onto the next thing and never come back to it again. I get that there's so many games that most of us will not replay the vast majority of games we beat, but solid design is important not just for the longevity of a single title but the quality of every game that iterates within a genre. If game design is being done well, there SHOULD be games you will want to revisit periodically for the rest of your life. But since a lot of the gaming media seems to be fundamentally anti-gamer, what you get are a lot of people on both sides of the industry who have no concept of why anyone would ever want to play anything but the latest thing. I don't know why, but it reminds me of how I've seen KZbinrs talk about the concept of lives like it's an outdated mechanic that should be done away with in all cases. I agree in games where lives have become completely meaningless. Mario Wonder wouldn't play much differently without lives. In fact, lives are so easy to acquire that a hard mode that just flat-out limited retries per level (with the ability to acquire extra tries within certain levels, maybe) would offer more of that classic experience for someone who wants that. If there was a mode where I always had a flat 5 tries on a given level, I'd probably play that and enjoy it. Shovel Knight worked really well without lives, but in so many cases - the lack of a real penalty for failing a stage took all the tension out of the experience for me. With more arcade style games, I'm not playing to beat them - I'm playing to see how far I can get, and if I really enjoy it, I'm playing to master it. And if I'm playing to master it - getting sent back to the start isn't a punishment, and limited lives become a resource that I manage in my mind as opposed to a limitation on the game experience. They're not inherently good or bad design. And it's really gotten under my skin that just because it's a modern trend or it's less punishing it's somehow "better" than older design. The sameness of so many modern titles is a big part of what's pushed me toward retro gaming over the past few years; I feel like whether I purchase the latest pixel art indie darling or the big AAA game coming out that month, I'm getting the same underlying experience with a different coat of paint. The perfect balance was struck in a lot of PS2 and GameCube era titles, and I think for modern design to improve, it's going to require several steps back before moving forward.

[@bebopobama4686]

This guy is a legit videogame scholar. Very high technical understanding of gameplay design and the ability to convey it you don't see anywhere else right now.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much my dude!! I spend a lot of times sitting around and discussing these topics with other hardcore players and indie devs, so I'm hoping it's a glimpse into some views on game design that aren't as commonly talked about.

[@belllhanger]

My biggest gripe mentioned on this list is most definitely the spreadsheet balancing. I get that some tools are overused, but what if they're over used because they're fun? I feel like the obsession to turn every competitive game into an e-sport has made a lot of modern devs forget that games are supposed to be fun first.

[@henryfleischer404]

Yeah, I like your point about progression for progression's sake. That's a big part of why I don't like Doom Eternal- the "real" game is only the last couple levels, after getting the Crucible. Meanwhile, original Doom reaches the "real" game almost instantly- the instant I get the shotgun in E1M1, it's introduced every mechanic, and the rest of the game is just building off of that.

[@shrippie-4214]

When i was learning programming I learned that you should make everything independent of the frame rate never heard anyone doing any else for any reason

[@itanocircus2106]

I remember an example of a good compromise between the compulsive urge towards progression and having the game put its true self forward from the get go during my first playthrough of Celeste. The B-sides of levels typically introduce u to a “new” move with a v brief instruction followed immediately by fun challenges applying this new move. But what lit up my brain during my first playthrough was at first thinking that the B-sides are introducing these extra moves until I encountered other B-side levels that were about types of moves I had already discovered by myself during the course of experimenting or even accidentally executing them. Then I realized all the advanced moves are just available to u from the beginning of the game. I know “the game has hidden mechanics u figure out” is just describing what a lot of action games used to just do, and it’s nothing new, but I think the key difference for me was that I experienced a healthy mix of discovering moves by myself AND having the game “introduce” them to me as I progressed if I hadn’t already discovered them before their “introduction”. They’re giving me plenty of opportunity to discover the move before. I think this is a good compromise between a modern game design habit and something more confidently forward facing.

[@weakboson7813]

Data driven game balance is the thing that makes me the most mad - this creeps into even non-competitive games. At some point it stops being art and just becomes balancing an equation in a spreadsheet.

[@todesziege]

The end goal is to replace designers and artist with accountants in every field.

[@zuffin1864]

Recently, I feel like we have been missing lightgun games. We were so close to having standardized controls for that, then we conflated motion controls with IR aim systems. We ended up ditching the best part for gyro controls anyways, it sucks

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I miss lightgun games too. Alas I think their fate, for now, is too heavily tied to the fate of the CRT since CRT based lightguns, like the guncon with it's sync cable, are just so much better than wiimotes and definitely better than the sinden. The Wiimotion plus was actually pretty damn solid though, so if the wiiU had been successful I think we might have seen a lot more lightgun games made during that era.

[@SpidersSTG]

Gyro is great, but point taken! IR was the best feature of the Wii. Great retro system to keep around:)

[@taylor_o]

Im so glad you mentioned pikmin 1--i immediately thought of it when you started talking about entropy. The timer forced you to economize your actions and turned what would have otherwise been a trivially easy game into a tense, fun challenge.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I love Pikmin 1. Yes exactly, the in game timer of both the day and night cycle, as well as the 30 day limit, creates a formal performance metric that you not only have to avoid failing, but also can optimize and improve from play through to play through. I'm not a speedrunner type too much, but it's very satisfying to keep optimizing the games and have the max amount of days remaining by the end.

[@thechaxxe3565]

I believe your points are very understood, I think you should consider making a video on "Modern Game Design trends that Help Longevity" too! I know for a fact there are trends or design methods that have benefitted their game in the long run

[@soulhammer]

Awesome video! All the points are completely spot on! Only thing that I was thinking after watching is the point on downtime. I think you're right in most cases but actually downtime can be a really interesting dynamic in genres like survival horror, where I think it can work really well. For one, downtime doesn't actually mean downtime half the time because by the game's nature you don't know what's coming and surprises are pretty common. It also helps immerse you into what are usually fantastically crafted environments and soundtrack (Well good survival horror games anyway) so I think it helps amp up the tension, if anything. There's even cooler things devs can do where what was once a downtime safe house for example can be turned on its head, taking away the downtime and safety with a sudden encounter. A lot of playing can be done with this with but yea outside of that kind of thing, downtime literally kills games for me.

[@blahblahblah118]

There is a 99% chance that any long elevators you see are masking loading times.

[@Gazkhaio]

I think this is a great summary and a genuine critique of modern gaming. My personal gripe is when game length is a deciding factor in reviews *cough* IGN. If the game should be a few hours and it’s experience is tied to that brief time then why should it be bloated out just to tick a box that it’s a lengthy game. I’ve noticed more arcade style games recently bloating out especially in scrolling beat em ups. 1 1/2 hours is too long for that kind of game.

[@Bluesine_R]

I believe in DMC5 you can beat Urizen right in the prologue of the game if you’re good enough, which technically means beating the game. This way you can unlock Son of Sparda and then Dante Must Die modes very quickly. You don’t get all your moves, but that is still a big improvement to having to play the game for dozens of hours to unlock the highest difficulty.

[@AbcDefg-zt8xy]

Same with ninja gaiden sigma 1, beat the level 2 boss - unlock next difficulty right now

[@kpsk8031]

Publishers don't want longevity in games (that are not live service): Buy product, finish product, buy next product.

[@Ohrami]

Point 10 is by far my biggest complaint with modern gaming. I love Slay the Spire, but if I was forced to actually unlock all the difficulties, cards, and relics (which takes literally hours even if you're basically a master of the game) rather than unlock them all with a mod, I wouldn't have ever gotten into it. I get that some people want to play more casually. That's fine. Difficulties exist for that. But I want to actually play the game on the highest difficulty, because I play games for the challenge. Slay the Spire on Ascension 20 trying to beat the Heart with all cards and relics unlocked is the actual game, not all the other stuff they make you do.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes I'm in the same boat with all the character action games i enjoy playing as well. I don't preserve all my old save files from my older consoles and so if i want to play Master Ninja mode of Ninja Gaiden 1/2 on Xbox1x, I either need to slog through the campaigns on low difficulty modes or somehow figure out a way to import my old 360 save file, which I don't think is actually possible.

[@Catinthebag1513]

I feel like i found a really cool corner of KZbin, all the comments actually say some interesting shit! Actually adding to the conversation or critiquing the video. Theres too many comment sections on KZbin filled with people just making bad jokes for likes

[@Agus-wp2cc]

As a game programmer, I rather have the framerate locked. Variable fps can cause some unpredictable behaviors.

[@blossom357]

"Over time, these more shallow trends will get replaced with more solid, fundamental design concepts." Oh, what hopeless and naive optimism... we both know what's going to happen is the shallow trends will fall and give way to NEW shallow trends.

[@rafaelbrito9519]

The forced server connection makes sense from a business model perspective. They want to force a server connection in order to promote all the skins/dlc characters/season pass on the 1st screen you see in the game. Needing the player to press "play online" and then connecting him with the servers would mean that the offline only players wouldn't be exposed to the microtransaction options. If the player doesn't know a product exists he's never going to buy it.

[@lewisyeadon4046]

Nothing better than booting up a $100 game day one and being met with a loading circle to connect to a web service to plaster the day one DLC everywhere before I even have the chance to see a title screen

[@qew_Nemo]

Very good points. I agree with a large part of what you're saying. As an Overwatch player I especially agree with point 3. Blizzard is obsessed with data-driven balancing to an extreme degree. And they've successfully taught this idea of the need to micromanage every single possible disparity between character performance to their audience too. To the point where they now regularly release "joke" and experimental modes that have more natural, fun and engaging balance than the main game that seems to be pursuing not fun equilibrium but some kinda sterile equality of outcome. And don't get me wrong, I would still say the balance in the main game is OK and has been for a long time, even though I don't love some of the recent changes. And I get that every disparity is massively magnified at the highest skill levels, but here I still very much agree with your idea of players naturally finding ways to deal with metas in interesting ways rather than everything being preemptively forcibly "balanced" to be equally good for absolutely everyone at all times. This only gets worse due to the fact that some characters are just shit on the conceptual level and trying to make them perform equally well at all costs... well it does come at all costs, mostly fun. Instead of being harmlessly useless they become obnoxious nuisances. Meanwhile cool characters that are powerful in interesting skill-dependent ways have to be constantly dragged down because they're too "oppressive" when good players play them.

[@Fedor_Kisliakov]

I think downtime is fine as long as the player has to do something meaningful and engaging. Like in RE4, you have this intense village envounter sequence. But after that, the rest of the chapter is more subdued. But you still engage with the core mechanics, which makes the next big encounters even more engaging. Change up the intensity, level design, etc. Just make sure the player is engaged. Do not force them into an idle state where they have to just push the analog stick forward. Doom Eternal is another good example when the player is fully engaged 95% percent of the time.

[@magicjohnson3121]

To be honest RE4 has terrible pacing when after a cool combat encounter you collect ammo and treasure. Plus backtracking through empty areas.

[@Fedor_Kisliakov]

@@magicjohnson3121 Backtracking through empty spaces are few and far between, plus it lasts like a couple of minutes. As for the treasure and ammo hunt, these areas are usually very small. But if it gets on your tits too much, try playing without the merchant. Or at least without upgrading your weapons. Then you do not really need to collect treasures, and enemies drop plenty of ammo.

[@magicjohnson3121]

​@Fedor_Kisliakov yeah I know. Need to try it because searching for ammo is a boring time killer.

[@etnabq5236]

Games that have downtime are easy to stream. And games that get streamed get popular. It's a trend I don't think will stop.

[@todesziege]

The negative influence streaming have had on _game design_ is very overlooked.

[@thommccarthy1139]

I also hate the opening to mgsv but that has more to do with kojima's ego than the refund timer, but point taken. Masterful vid, as per usual.

[@RealKaiserRyu]

Have you ever played Serious Sam? It’s another great series that has a tendency to get stomped on by reviews despite it being one of the most satisfying 1 vs Million power fantasies and hectic shooters you can play.

[@magicjohnson3121]

Serious Sam The First Encounter is awesome and even normal difficulty doesn't mess around. Who knew Croatians could be just as crazy as the Japenese. Also Painkiller is another similar game to Serious Sam. Also the only good game made in Poland.

[@titus6573]

Second encounter was my jam back in the day

[@alanbalan3539]

I play modern games but it mostly feels like they string you along with juuuust enough "real" content to keep you playing and pad those parts out with as much filler and fluff as the average player can stand. So you end up taking 20+ hours to finish and end up having a vaguely favorable but also fairly blank impression of whatever you just played. Modern game are like huel or whatever its called around the world. Sure it meets the minimum needed requirement for keeping you alive but that all.

[@SpidersSTG]

Modern gaming is methadone gaming.

[@arisumego]

12:39 also not to mention the meta of melee changing massively over the years such as puff going from shit tier to god tier thanks to hbox and now yoshi being reevaluated thanks to aMSa

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes it's actually really cool how robust and interesting the melee of meta has managed to stay all these years. I do think Fox is ultimately the best character, but by a pretty thin margin in comparison to Marth who I've always felt is insanely good because of his high movement speed, ruthless grab game, and powerful disjointed hitboxes. It was funny in my local scene (now dead) my friends got tired of me playing fox so i actually spent a year learning and playing exclusively marth, and I didn't' do that much worse with him overall ha.

[@midorixiv]

The saddest thing about this remake trend is that you have all these talented devs who seem desperate to do anything else but are forced to just remake their older games. People complain about 'nomura ruining the ff7 remake' but I see it more as a cry for help..

[@MGrey-qb5xz]

yeah nomura himself said he wanted to make a new ff so he made it in the form of the current ff7, he pretty much took revenge

[@balohna]

I don't think every game needs to be a game you want to replay or master, but very valid points overall.

[@franciscor390]

I remember a very good example from Tecmo's Rygar (arcade version from the late 80's) made a very intelligent use of micro breaks in between, where you passed through gates, as the game was crazy challenging, this was a great way to catch your breath as they could often fill the screen with extremely powerful enemies. The game was also very long for an arcade game. It could take more than an hour to finish it, so it felt like you've lived through an odyssey in that time.

[@HieronymousLex]

Excited to hear you’re going full time, you’re gonna do great. Your insights over the years have totally changed the way I view games. You also massively got me into shmups a few years ago and have been a huge resource in my journey. I also wanna say, even though it might be a little awkward, that I wouldn’t blame you one bit for making shmup videos less of a priority while growing the channel. Not that my opinion on what content you make matters, and I’m sure you know this. But I just wanted to say that. You have so much to say about games and I love it when you branch out. You’ll always have that attachment to shmups and are the perfect emissary. We’ll be here! Keep on rocking man

[@NiohArcadia]

I love how you explain your points about why you do or don't like something. Even if I don't agree with all of your points in videos like these at least you're explaining yourself and I can see where you are coming from. It gets me to think about games like the ones you're talking about differently. Can't tell you how many times I've seen KZbinrs unable to explain why a certian game design do or done work for them and chalk it up to. "Just look at the screen" Or "Play it for yourself."

[@HerbieChuckNorris]

I'm glad you feel optimistic about trends changing in the future. I think the first step towards that is criticism such as this because the prevalence of such trends is probably because a good chunk of players aren't able to quite articulate what it is that's holding some games back. Glad you're putting your analysis out there. Also because I feel much more cynical about some of these - especially progression systems. Let's hope for a shift in the future because it's genuinely tiring having 90% of AAA (and a lot of indies) fall into mediocrity because of this trend towards homogeneous designs.

[@Matheusss89]

I believe the trends that will age poorly the most will be all the current convenience mechanics that are plaguing AAA gaming. For example, do you want a more restrictive but precise control that allow for MORE options in the end, or let the character shift between tons of animations as if he's drunk, as long as you're given this false sense of freedom of movement? RE4 vs REmake4 is the perfect comparison here. Also, most games have so many clutches (messages, voices in your head, trails, GPS maps, Icons everywhere, pinpoint location arrows) and so many overpowered tools (seeing through walls, mark and execute, 1 button kills, bush stealth) that make the player vs enemy dynamic so unbalanced, that in the end most of these games will feel boring and not worth the replay in the long run. Their solutions for players that demand more have been unsatisfactory too, since just making enemies damage sponges or removing tools the game was made around does not fix it. Not even going to talk about all the setpieces where there is really no risk, let alone reward in them. Seeing more cutscenes is not a reward. Trying to add too much to a genre that doesn't mash with most of it has been really annoying too. Developers should trust more in their own systems and not let convenience turn everything into a blur of generic jack-of-all-trades. Not every game needs to be a third person shooter looter rogue coop stealth action puzzle cinematic experience.

[@todesziege]

A lot of those hand-helper systems are more or less necessitated by modern big games being a big mess, both in terms of design but even more so visual language. Super-detailed graphics cause a very poor signal-to-noise ratio in visual information to the player.

[@OccuredJakub12]

I don't think the pause button is a good substitute for downtime. I'd rather have the option to just walk around the game world and look for goodies in corners, or talk to NPCs or travel rather than... stare at the pause screen for 5 minutes 😂 But I agree forcing in downtime isn't the right answer either

[@zgamerf8807]

The "lack of entropy" topic is likely the reason why I really like/love a game like Tokyo Jungle Because the time progress affects a lot of things in game, from environment, evolution, your character, etc. You have to keep moving to stay alive and improve stats. It was such a gem of a game from PS3

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I've never played Tokyo Jungle but I looked up some footage of it and it looks really interesting! I can't think of a game I've seen before that it even reminds me of ha. Also the fact that you play as animals (and not animal people like Animal Crossing) seems really unique.

[@fortheloveofgodlaugh2981]

I got shared this in a server. I like a fair share of modern games and don't feel as strong as you do for some topics, but this was an excellently put together video. The external account stuff is particularly aggregious

[@KidUncommon]

Been digging into your content and insight for awhile now, and I've longed disagreed with your disdain for meter mechanics. This video finally shed some light on the crutch that metered mechanics provide in lieu of actual balancing. I still dig my meter usage in fighting games, but now I know better on how other ways a game can be balanced. Love your analysis, hope to see the long run!

[@Zetact_]

Frankly the argument he made seemed to be rather boomerish (specifically looking at the older versions of SF2 with very rose-tinted glasses ignoring that they were pretty sloppy for most of the game's releases) with little understanding of what meters in fighting games exactly are for. The thing is that meter isn't just about balancing, it's about adding depth and decision making to the game. In Street Fighter 6, the Drive System gives you a meter that fills at a consistent rate across the entire cast and that lets you do five distinct things, then gives you a severe penalty when it runs out. Right on its face you see what sort of depth it adds to the game, it's a risk-reward mechanic that allows people to build out their play styles since each of the five uses is distinct in how it can be used for offense, defense, and neutral. In fact, it goes AGAINST the idea that "if something is too strong we can just modify its meter use" (this is almost never a balancing factor in fighting games afaik) because the Drive System is a universal mechanic - if a character in SF6 has a Drive Impact that's too weak or powerful you can't modify the DI mechanic, you have to directly alter the DI itself.

[@lounowell4171]

I mean, health bars are meters. It definitely seems lazy to me though when there's multiple universal meters and various character specific ones. I want diegetic mechanics, tracking a bunch of numbers and bars is for Eve Online players, or office workers.

[@joshdavis8381]

I feel like the point about entropy depends on the game in question. In fighting games for example, it makes sense to have something like a timer, because it forces engagement. The players have to do something to whittle down their opponent's health, if even by a smidge, because otherwise the round will end in a draw. Without a timer, players don't have a reason to engage, at least in more competitive environments. However, as a point for games that don't really need entropy per se, I would like to use the first Zelda on the NES. See, the point of that game was to explore, for the sake of it really. There were rewards for exploring, and you need to do it to actually beat the game, but most of your motivation to explore Hyrule in Zelda 1 was more so your innate curiosity. The game definitely got harder, but you could just walk around the overworld for as long as you'd like, trying to find secrets if you wanted to. So yeah, I feel like the entropy point is probably the weakest one in this video. Though the last one about progression for its own sake is one I strongly agree with. Shadow of War was worse than Shadow of Mordor for this reason. The combat was not designed for long hours of play, even with small abilities attached to it. The loop is just not engaging enough for 60 hours of play, and yet, it seems like that's what the developers thought when making it. I got bored of SoW after about 12 hours, because the game felt like it plateaued...

[@ardalanghasemian3658]

Commenting for the algorithm, thanks again for the original takes and deep esoteric analysis, even tho we had a lot of these stuff in the past I see you as a visionary among the confirmist culture of todays gaming landscape.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much!!! I do sincerely appreciate that little bit of extra engagement because right now I do need the grace of the alg to help my channel grow ha. So really, I do appreciate the kind comment :-)

[@khkl_23]

I think the quote "love me or hate me but don't ignore me" used by some actors and athletes is quite applicable to game design. These actors and athletes recognize that they are also entertainers, but the worst attribute to have in entertainment is being boring/bland. It takes boldness & confidence to have this approach though. The best games provoke both positive & negative emotional responses from their fans. But if you don't have enough highs to counter the lows, people will hate your game. You can this happening with recent Souls-like games that got the design wrong. Most game developers don't have the required confidence or don't want to take that risk, so they choose boring/bland design and try to appeal to as many people possible. This usually ends up appealing to nobody or people who prefer quantity over quality. I feel like this is a major source of the bad game design that Mark mentions.

[@Emmycron]

the huge undying trend of The Live Service Model is so shit. Fortnite will straight up not be a thing in 10 years time. We have the luxury of going back and playing the games we grew up with, the next generation won't. It doesn't matter how passionate the developers and artists are when big corporate can just shoehorn as much FOMO and predatory monetization as physically possible and just shut it down *forever* the second it's not hugely profitable anymore.

[@lamegamertime]

One issue I feel I should point out with adaptive difficulty is that it works best over longer, uninterrupted sessions. In a game with shorter levels and/or more interruptions, there isn't much context for the game to pull from when deciding the player's skill. The interruptions mean that the player's next attempt will be from a completely new context, so carrying rank over between them is actually detrimental because it removes the small amount of control the player should have. (That is, if your previous run determines your rank in a fresh run, that's too little control.) That's not to say it's impossible, but it is very difficult! The Plants vs Zombies games have had two separate "adaptive difficulty" systems: one of which spawns more enemies based on how many levels you've beaten in a row, the other spawns the fresh waves early once you've sufficiently damaged the latest wave. The former sucks on account of being entirely outside the player's control, but the latter works pretty well by being somewhat within the player's control (e.g. you can choose plants that are more or less likely to trigger the next wave early... This method is also good for facilitating speedruns in a way that fits the gameplay...!) If you were to add adaptive difficulty to Dark Souls I feel like it would have that problem... You can't just base it off whether the player dies to a given boss; it won't work because (in that game) deaths are an interruption! (After writing all this, I realize "reset" might be a better word for this than "interruption"...? Both words are decent descriptions of the event. Interruptive-reset? Hmm)

[@Bluesine_R]

I think the World Tendency system in Demon's Souls could have worked very well as an adaptive difficulty system. Make it so that World Tendency (WT) can only be changed in Human Form. If you die in Human Form, you respawn in Soul Form, and need a Stone of Ephemeral Eyes to get back to Human Form (and there are only a finite amount of Stones in the game). At the start all levels are at Black WT, and the goal (for advanced players, beginners can ignore World Tendency entirely if they want) is to get them all to White WT. If you defeat enemies and bosses in Human Form, the WT goes towards White, and the game becomes more difficult, with enemies becoming faster have have more difficult patterns. If the player takes damage or dies, the WT goes back towards Black. If the player managed to change the WT of all worlds to White, a hidden 6th world would be unlocked, and a True Final Boss at the end of it. I think this system could have fit the world of the game very well, and could have narrative implications, such as the Old One having put all worlds to a Colorless Fog (Black WT), and the player being able to reveal the true nature of each world by changing the WT to White.

[@crack_the_sky]

40:58 That moment when Mark's critique goes so hard that he accidentally praises a mainstream JRPG and criticizes DMC3. Just kidding, love this. Great analysis as always!

[@kozlorog]

Electric Underground is representative of the actual gaming underground movement xD While normies watch their interactive movies with de-facto QTE """gameplay""", Electric is out there, digging tunnels and giving dimonds to the starved gamers. Thanks, man! Hopefully we'll see the light one day. As for now, let's keep digging underground and sow the seeds for the bright gaming future!

[@titus6573]

You fanboys are so gay 😂

[@todesziege]

It's kind of funny how we've reinvented FMV games, only being rendered in real-time.

[@LouisBee]

Data Driven Game Balance absolutely murders my interest in many modern multiplayer games. I could play a game like Counter-Strike Global Offensive one week, leave it for a bit, and then discover it has completely changed into Counter-Strike 2 sometime later, and has become an entirely new game. The ability to learn something is lost when it is constantly changing, and I know some people enjoy that, I hate it.

[@OccuredJakub12]

I (somewhat) DISAGREE ABOUT YOUR LAST TAKE I don't think the only "real" way of playing DMC3 is S ranking Dante Must Die. There is no "real" playing of any game. You can play for 5 hours or complete the game, do hard modes or easy modes or play with mods or whatever. Playing is just playing. Sure, you have the right to say you don't care about others opinions of the game if they didn't play it the way you did, but your opinions are just as worthless to them as theirs are to you. If I want to just run through a video game on normal mode and grab what I can and unlock the moves at my own pace, what's the worth in you or anyone else telling me something like "oh if you wanna get S ranks you should only use this tactic" or "oh you should play Super Hard only" or "Oh if you don't undo this option in the menu or get this item you're playing it wrong" I understand that if you wanna get past the progression system you should have the right to do that, but those are separate issues.

[@Veeq7]

The next step with entropy is organic entropy. For example in a lot of RTS campaign the entropy is artificial, things happen on a timer, if god forbid you don't tick the designer's todo boxes. The way we did it differently when designing missions for Cosmonarchy, was to employ AI that actually follow the same rules as the players (doesn't spawn units, has to mine, has to build up, etc). I think AI is really the future of emergent gameplay. It creates dynamic push & pull, organic entropy where you decisions matters, what you do now will reflect the game state in few minutes from now. Inaction is punished, but also it's punished in the appropriate way, for example if you don't scale up your economy your enemy will outscale you, if you don't defend your AI ally they might get overwhelmed, if you don't control the map, the map will be taken away from you, etc etc.

[@Veeq7]

PS: We also unlock ALL tech tree ALWAYS, because yes it's not likely you will use high end tech in low economy early missions (where most players are learning), but it's not forbidden from you. The player can pace their learning experience the way the like it, and they always have a lot of tools they can try when the fail... PS2: And our tech trees are much bigger than most RTS games, so there is always a plethora of choices. There are few tech restrictions during the match, i.e. you must build thing A before thing B, but we also have less of that than other RTSes. We never arbitrarily lock you from building something in a match though. And even then each race even has ability to explore other races tech trees (with slight twists) if the reclaim their workers or buildings via tools they are given. PS3: Now that we are finished with the tutorials, you should give them a try ;)

[@daviddavidson1450]

To give a counter example for the data driven / short term balancing, I bought Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising when it released, and while it was really fun at the start, a huge problem emerged rather quickly, namely the universal dash attack 66L. It covered distance, left you in the opponent's face and gave you frame advantage, so there was almost no downside to keep spamming it, and everyone did. It had counterplay, but that was very limited and not enough to discourage the heavy abuse. I dropped the game because of it, and apparently it took months for the devs to address the issue. My point here being that short term balancing would have made me stick with the game. On the flipside, maybe people would have figured out how to live with this oppressive tool in the long run, but, in my opinion, if that comes at the cost of almost everyone leaving, is that worth it? No.

[@titus6573]

That game is trash

[@stevo19991]

I believe these gaming trends came to accommodate today's gaming market (as much as we love to think that games are all about Art at the end of the day it's business). Today no one has enough time for what I'd like to call Dense Gaming, the developers don't have time, the shareholders don't have time, and most importantly the Players don't have time, and so with that in mind the Dense Gaming that requires unique skills to unique games that you are advocating for is just not possible in today's landscape. Now it's easier to make every action game a "Souls like" because the devs and the players are so used to such mechanics and they can't bother to make or learn others. That is why we lost games like God Hand, DMC3, and Ninja Gaiden. The rest is just greedy game publishers sucking every drop of sweat from the devs and every penny from the players.

[@heideknight7782]

For me the one point that stands out of the rest is the one about mandatory external accounts to play a game. I assume that almost everyone who plays games these days has either a Steam account, a PSN account or a MS account (or a Nintendo account ?). Or even two or more of these. On top of this, some big game publishers also force players to create further accounts to play their games: EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, PSN (as a 3rd party developer for PC ports of their games), etc.. Most recently, Sony announced that a PSN account is mandatory to play their PC port of God of War Ragnarok. This is crazy, because it is a pure single player game! Same with Ghost of Tsushima that recently became available on PC (but has at least a multi player mode to justify having to log in with a Sony account). We get more and more trained to not actually own the games anymore which we paid for. Instead, we can technically get blocked any time to play our games if one of those platforms decides that we are not allowed to use their software anymore. Sometimes not due to our own fault, because our accounts could get hacked (most unsafe is PSN as far as I have heard) by someone. So this is a permanent threat one needs to deal with nowadays. I hope therefore that players critically check whether or not they want to pay for games which force one to create yet another account. Most often the only advantage of this is on the publishers side while the players might only get access to further products he doesn't want to consume anyway.

[@sirgarrote]

Your "first play through" point hits home for me. Going through the initial slog of a game prevents me from replaying them quite often.

[@PERSONTHATISCLEVER]

I understand the point about data driven balance, how there can be a tendency to tweak competitive games too much, but I'd argue this sort of thing has already been happening, and it historically has had changes for the better. Before, a new FG would launch, and more often than not it would be dogshit. Awful universal mechanics, bad parameters, SSS tier characters alongside D tier characters. Then companies would just re-release entire new editions to remedy these issues, and everyone would have to repurchase the entire game. I'm not making up the concept either, this happened historically with many vanilla fighting games like Street Fighter, BlazBlue, Undernight In-Birth, Melty Blood, and probably several more I'm not aware of. Now with iterative patching, developers can tweak certain parameters without consumers needing to buy a whole new edition, and people won't have to contend with the truly pitifiul state that most vanilla Fighting Games start in. There is a case to be made with how frequent these balance changes take place, and whether the designers are thinking about their vision in tandem with the data, but iterative game balance isn't a bad idea itself.

[@edoardopalmer2379]

I'm not 100% with you on the second point, i think games that used frames as a variable had a lot more creativity in coding, the games felt more consistent and unpredictable at the same time. This is especially true in the physics side of things P.S. about the entropy.. I've once saw a guy on YT complaining about the last area of DMC1, where if you remain still for a bit, an attack comes from the ground and damages you. this concept is actually applied through all the game, where if you just stand still the game spawns some weak mob just to be sure you are not just wasting time with your screen on. Btw, the guy was COMPLAINING

[@edoardopalmer2379]

I also want to add that cathering a game to a specific hardware makes for more unique experiences

[@drakewinwest9888]

I saw your vid on Tekken backdash and then watched your godhand vid and now you are one of my fav KZbinrs

[@DJ239]

I'll never forget the first time I saw "Do you want to switch to Easy mode?" when dying a lot in a video game. It was ego and soul crushing. No! I don't want to switch to easy mode! I want to keep trying so I can get better at the game. I think it was either Devil May Cry 1 or Onimusha where I first saw this happen. Don't do that developers!

[@todesziege]

That's at least better than lowering it _without_ asking.

[@yunggolem4687]

Fundamental problem is "over-authoring". Developers keep increasing constraints on the player so devs can micromanage the experience, removing edge/corner cases, rounding off all edge. They remove the player's authorship over his experience AND homogenize the emergent "vibe" of the game. This is one of the reasons modern AAA games all feel the same, they are all sanded down into the same edgeless, pointless sphere.

[@HerbieChuckNorris]

Based summary of the issue.

[@M4Dbrat]

It's like how FromSoft have said. "We want everyone to have the same experience" - but everyone shouldn't have the same experience, because that means players have no input, it means that even for the same player the experience is going to be samey. "Whenever you fail, we want it to be clear why you failed" - which means there's no chaos, no true adaptation. If there's no room to misinterpret/get confused about the game, it means it has no layers, no complex interactions between mechanics that cascade in all sorts of ways, nothing to uncover, no room for mastery

[@cbbbbbbbbbbbb]

Super well thought out and great points. EXCEPT the adaptive difficulty. I prefer it being a menu option, because I set it and forget it. I have never and will never change it during a playthrough. But having an explicit option usually dissuades the developer from implementing an in-game adaptive system. Adaptive difficulty is my most hated feature implemented in modern games. I don't want hand holding and don't want to be patronized. I want to set my difficulty and play the game through. If it is too hard, I can make a choice to restart the game with less difficulty. Don't change it automatically because I keep dying to a boss. I am dying because I am not good enough. I will get better and eventually beat the boss, or I won't. It should always be that simple.

[@thelastgogeta]

Agreed. In the best case scenario, the player is totally unaware of the difficulty going down while enjoying the thrill of finally winning, in the worst case, you have to reset to get that challenge again. There are inbetweens as well since I can enjoy knowing that it will lower if the wager if I lose in Kid Icarus Uprising or find it annoying that I can't start on the highest difficulty in Smash Ultimate, but being able to choose is a good foundation. I'm sure some people live in bliss that they finally got a win without knowing that the game drastically lowered the health, spawns or attacks of enemies but as someone who watches speedruns where people miss on purpose or die to dynamically lower difficulty (Resident Evil) - I think it can end up downgrading the experience for speedrunning and subtly damage the relationship with improvement.

[@Bluesine_R]

Adaptive difficulty doesn’t work with long games where there is no penalty for dying. It works the best with short arcade-style games where lives are very limited. The point is rewarding the player with more challenges if they can play well and keep the Rank high. You can have a final level and a last boss that is only accessible for players who managed to keep the Rank high enough and didn’t get a game over. This kind of adaptive difficulty you don’t have to set in an options menu; in fact you as a player don’t have to do anything about it at all.

[@todesziege]

I think it can work for shmups/arcade games specifically because they're short, meant for replaying and are (typically) up-front about it, but absolutely hate when modern games try to be sneaky about it. The moment you start to notice it is when the immersion dies.

[@edwardperkins1225]

Game logic being dependent on framerate will be a lot more difficult to change at least for indies unless engines such as Game Maker and others make delta time automatic rather than having to plug in a complex time formular into every movement and alarm you use in a game. It's less an issue for 2d games since they can hit consistent framerates, but the practical solution if it's not automatically adjusted for you is to shoot for 60 fps, and add a frameskip the player can set if there are problems with slowdown drawing all frames. It has to be integrated automatically into whatever game engine else there's a significant burden on any movement or timers you want to do. I don't expect indies will do that.

[@regpett3730]

Really enjoy watching your videos Mark. As a recently new fan, I haven't found many people that delve this deep on a game's design as opposed to all these other things surrounding a game and not the gameplay itself. Do you have any other KZbinrs you recommend for in depth/thoughtful dissection.

[@EXWildWolf]

10:19 bruh, this entire section makes it seem like you're psychic. You're SUPER right about just letting a game develop over time.

[@magicjohnson3121]

You know there's a problem with your game when people have to make videos about "how to grind for red orbs quickly." Absolutely unnecessary design.

[@BlackPillVillain]

Excellent video!

[@RemixSSBM]

i wish some devs would take this info to heart. i don't agree with all of it, but there's some good unique ideas in here that could definitely help a lot of games

[@NotRay1995]

downtime juat feels like a solution to a problem that no one had

[@beetheimmortal]

Data driven game balance is what killed Total War, actually. Classic Total War died with the introduction of unit health bars and quantified combat bonuses that are not actual systems, but are hacks made by the devs because it's "easier" to balance.

[@auellaitaela8035]

Some other thoughts as I got a few agreements, and a few disagreements, in order of your points. 1) Downtime *can* be valuable, but it needs to be meaningful. Intensity is defined by contrast. High intensity moments are defined by their contrast with low intensity moments, and vice versa. For high intensity moment to truly feel high intensity, there must be downtime and low intensity moments. But yeah, most devs do it terribly. You can still have low intensity downtime that has you interacting at a high level, it doesn't *always* have to be an elevator or hallway. 2) I don't think I've seen a lot of hardware hardcoding in modern games? It's absolutely a sin but luckily becoming a thing of the past. I'm far less optimistic about 120fps being the standard soon. Devs will move to 8k at 60fps before 4k at 120fps, and modern consoles and cards can already just barely do a stable 60fps. Most ps5 games are hella choppy with bad frame timing and you'll see most games say they "target" 60 fps, not that they run at it. 3) Soft agree. A crafted meta can be even better than a natural one, and not *all* natural metas feel good. Often times devs do need to go in there and balance those values. They often go to far, but I don't think the natural meta that springs from lack of balance always turns out as well as Smash. 4) Hard agree. 5) Hard agree. 6) Covered in another comment, hardest disagree of all time. 7) I think meters can be done very well, and can sometimes be well done. I think you go too hard on Sekiro a lot. You say it abandons the fundamentals for its design, but I say it *makes* its design a fundamental and works its one main mechanic around it, becoming a fundamental. It's the other games that look at Sekiro and say "neat! Let's do that" but don't understand how Sekiro's mechanic turned it into a fundamental and wasn't just a tacked on mechanic, thus, those types of meters end up getting a bad name. 8) Yeah, that'll kill longevity. Super short sighted. 9) Disagree, but not a hard one. I'm a super slow patient player and sometimes enjoy just doing nothing and it can be a bummer being punished from it. 10) This is *heavily* genre dependent. I absolutely hate roguelites so also very much dislike those types of progressions, and hate when you slowly unlock basic fundamentals as you play. One of my all time favorite games, Rabi Ribi, has you unlock your basics over the first quarter of the game, and it makes for a slow and lame intro making me just rush through the story to unlock them before slowing down and really digging into the game. There's no reason I should have had to level and unlock things. But progression in itself can be fun and satisfying. It's just when it hurts the fundamentals it becomes a problem. Largely I think we agree. The main thing I *hate* is when games lock the hard difficulties behind an easier difficulty playthrough. Fuck that. That's the worst new player bias. Let me unlock the *real* difficulty right away. I don't want to play through the game once just to play it for real. Overall a great video even if I think I fall on the other side of half your points. They're still largely argued well (except dynamic difficulty, I'll die on that hill that it's the most cancerous cancer in gaming).

[@madnessoverload7824]

Personally i'm not a fan of adaptive difficulty and i think games should always have an option to turn it off. Some people (like me) just take longer to get good at a game, and they want to feel rewarded for the time they put in. If you die 10 times to a boss and then only beat it because the game made it easier, it doesn't feel like you've accomplished anything. I find it very condescending for a game to tell you "Damn, looks like you suck. Here, let me hold your hand."

[@marcossegon5433]

Yeah, it also sucks when you find a difficulty to be the sweetspot you wish to play in and then the game just cranks it up or lowers it because yes. I want to like Blue Revolver's difficulty options for example but it really sucks how I find the lowest difficulty too easy, the highest one too hard and the middle one doesn't do it either because it just keeps changing the difficulty due to the rank system. If I choose a difficulty, I want the game to stick to it, not throw me into the higher/lower one just because I had a really good start or a somewhat bad one.

[@quilto1234]

I'm missing good old time when they provided cheat codes for games. Now they are selling cheats for single play games...

[@nemoguy]

I mean they kinda were selling cheat codes back in the day too just in the form of game guides and such

[@titus6573]

Ever heard of Action Replay or Gameshark? They have been charging for codes.

[@manzanito3652]

​@@nemoguy The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[@G-Self]

I disagree about the point on hardcoding game logic to hardware. "Doom" was hardcoded to run at 35 FPS and to this day it has a thriving community around it. If anything the hardcoded performance is what has helped it stay relevant, because it ensures a consistent experience regardless of how primitive or advanced the hardware is. I think it's better for developers to target a certain framerate and for remasters/ports/etc to be mindful of that. I'm personally not convinced of the need for framerates higher than 60. I guess it makes sense from a under-the-hood processing standpoint, but I don't see the benefits of actually displaying 120 frames on screen.

[@RippahRooJizah]

There are niche cases for when 120 FPS can be considered necessary, but I agree, over 60 is nice but not something that should be a requirement for games in general, given what is needed to maintain higher framerates.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Well yes, but the argument isn't that great games can't be made and enjoyed at low framerates, one of my fav games of all time, metal slug, is stuck at 30 fps as well. Like I said in the vid with older games this is more understandable because they didn't have the modern graphics cards and hardware standardization that we have these days. But that being said, I think it would be hard to deny that if you could get Doom to run at 120 fps (which might be possible with mods to the source code), then that would be an improvement in the design and performance of the game. Basically modern devs should recognize that the days or proprietary game hardware is pretty much over and so to cater the design of a game to the limitations of a console, like Bloodborne did on the PS4, is ultimately short-sighted.

[@RippahRooJizah]

@@TheElectricUnderground I'm pretty sure Metal Slug operated under hardware standardization. Ports of it, maybe less so. Bloodborne isn't a PC game so I don't think it's short sighted to have made considering the limitations of a console. In fact I'd consider it more a coding habit than anything else and the main reason it's 'not good' is because modders have issues.

[@Some-Ryan]

I always lock down the frame rate. Variability in frames, even with gsync monitors seems to cause me more headache. Consistency matters more than higher frame rates imo

[@saaaaaaaaadasda]

Maybe i don't understand something, but isn't almost all of the source ports can run at 120+fps with no problem? Including most popular due to advanced scripting - ZDoom. I don't think that community was thrived because of arbitrary lock to 35fps, due to the fact that it was meant for the 70hz monitors that would evenly divide frames, not like most 60hz monitors where 35fps appear jittery. It is clearly a limitation of PC processing power and not well though out decision for longevity sake, out of the box even PS1 port have better framepacing because it's locked to 30fps which is evenly divided on 60hz monitor/TV.

[@garrettwilkes1674]

Regarding the last point, I've actually seen mainstream critics push back on games that put in color-coded loot progression systems. It's not much, but it's a start.