How many of you have been unimpressed after having wiped out a clan of Orcs, killed a batallion of enemy Soldiers or aliens? How many of you have felt like "glorified pest exterminators" (to quote Wavinator?). Would you as a player like to feel differently, or you as game designers want the people playing your game to feel as though their combat had meant something [ either good or bad ! ]. I propose that what is lacking in these games in RESPECT for the ENEMY! Thus the player feels let down defeating an opponent which they do not feel was worthy to fight. How can you encourage the player to feel respect for the enemy? 1. The enemy has to be dangerous [at least in some circumstances], the player should have to work & think to defeat the opponent. 2. Even if "Evil", the enemy should have reasons for fighting the player. And the player should be able to guess what these are. Invading territory / prohibited areas, endangering their young, etc. 3. The enemy should have some kind of respect for the player (???), ie. they should realise that the player is a powerful enemy. The game that has most demonstrated this for me, is Jurassic Park: The Lost World [arcade game: on expert mode] which has you battling T-Rexes because you have stolen their young (2), they are hard to defeat(1), they show pain when you stop their attacks and back off for a while - building the tension (3?maybe). This had me feeling that I shouldn''t really have been fighting and eventually killing these creatures, because they were only defending their young. But it wasn''t possible to escape them as they were so fast and powerful.

Evil without consequence is meaningless.
-Ray Winninger, _the Chill Companion_

so what are you trying to condition the player to be? Some sort of horrible coward who cringes at the idea of doing what he''s supposed to do? Never punish the player. Never. That''s one of the most ignored laws of game design. You can make him scared, you can make him lose, you can make him die, but punish him? That''s just everquestian. People don''t play games for punishment. If you have to force the player into playing your game the way you want him to that just means one thing: your game needs work.

YOU SYMPATHISE WITH THOSE PIXELATED BASTARDS?! HOW DARE YOU. KILL KILL KILL! I WILL BATHE IN THE REJUVINATING BLOOD OF A THOUSAND ZERGLINGS!

I can''t remember which game it was, Dead or Alive 2 or Tekken 3 maybe, but I was having a serious of hard battles against one of the opponents (losing each time).

Just as I was beginning to get pretty frustrated, the game pulled off an amazing move which I''d not seen before. It was perfectly timed in response to my attack, and looked great -- it also wiped out the rest of my energy.

The point is: that was one of the best gaming moments of my life. Now if all games could inspire that kind of awe and respect when they kill a player - they''d be damn sight more fun to play.

E

quote:Original post by aDasTRa

you want to make a player respect an enemy? punish them for fighting. punish the player by killing them, punish the player by injurying them greatly, or by removing an item from them some how (like have the enemy steal it or break it).

<(o)>

quote:Original post by anonymous poster
Never punish the player. Never. That''s one of the most ignored laws of game design. You can make him scared, you can make him lose,
you can make him die, but punish him? That''s just everquestian. People don''t play games for punishment.

I agree with anonymous poster about not punishing the player, people play games for entertainment.

But aDasTRa does have some interesting ideas here, for example when he talks of greatly injuring the player.. I''m not sure that this would work if the injury was only the matter of having lost some health points and that you could soon recover from it.

Imagine if in defeating them you had a semi-scripted near fatal encounter, like being partly eaten by a T-Rex and only your colleagues distracting the T-Rex had saved you. Imagine if after this your character was heavily scarred!

How would you feel?

I play a fair amount of Quake 3 (and Quake 1 & 2 in years gone by) and I''d like to relate this experience to the three propositions mentioned in the original post:

1. The enemy has to be dangerous [at least in some circumstances], the player should have to work & think to defeat the opponent.

I agree totally. The 1 v 1 deathmatches that I have most enjoyed have been those that I have had to work hardest for. Theres nothing more satisfying than spending all day trying to beat a particular bot on Nightmare difficulty and finally breaking through in a glorius 20-18 win! :-D No matter how fast your reactions are, you cannot beat nightmare bots or an experienced deathmatcher without having some kind of strategy or gameplan.


2. Even if "Evil", the enemy should have reasons for fighting the player. And the player should be able to guess what these are. Invading territory / prohibited areas, endangering their young, etc.


Perhaps in my case this isn''t so true. Why am I killing players in a deathmatch competition? Quake 3 does have some kind of lame plot centered around a contest or something (ala Mortal Kombat) but basically I have no reason! Its kind of fun when its a challenge or I''m playing against friends but theres no reason for me to be fragging.


3. The enemy should have some kind of respect for the player (???), ie. they should realise that the player is a powerful enemy.

true. Theres a lot of development time been put into improving bot AI. It makes a game very thrilling when the bots change their strategy depending on how much health/armour/ammo they have. The opponents (human and AI) that are the most enjoyable to play are those that have some kind of strategy to kill you and don''t always go straight at you unless they think they have the advantage (lots of armour or rockets etc).

my $0.02

..Dr.J..

I play a fair amount of Quake 3 (and Quake 1 & 2 in years gone by) and I''d like to relate this experience to the three propositions mentioned in the original post:

1. The enemy has to be dangerous [at least in some circumstances], the player should have to work & think to defeat the opponent.

I agree totally. The 1 v 1 deathmatches that I have most enjoyed have been those that I have had to work hardest for. Theres nothing more satisfying than spending all day trying to beat a particular bot on Nightmare difficulty and finally breaking through in a glorius 20-18 win! :-D No matter how fast your reactions are, you cannot beat nightmare bots or an experienced deathmatcher without having some kind of strategy or gameplan.


2. Even if "Evil", the enemy should have reasons for fighting the player. And the player should be able to guess what these are. Invading territory / prohibited areas, endangering their young, etc.


Perhaps in my case this isn''t so true. Why am I killing players in a deathmatch competition? Quake 3 does have some kind of lame plot centered around a contest or something (ala Mortal Kombat) but basically I have no reason! Its kind of fun when its a challenge or I''m playing against friends but theres no reason for me to be fragging.


3. The enemy should have some kind of respect for the player (???), ie. they should realise that the player is a powerful enemy.

true. Theres a lot of development time been put into improving bot AI. It makes a game very thrilling when the bots change their strategy depending on how much health/armour/ammo they have. The opponents (human and AI) that are the most enjoyable to play are those that have some kind of strategy to kill you and don''t always go straight at you unless they think they have the advantage (lots of armour or rockets etc).

my $0.02

..Dr.J..