Spoon!!!
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Now that I have your attention, Lets assume your not nigh near indestructible in fact you are rather weak. In fact most of the bonuses you get only allow you to take on more difficult challenges few if any make those challenges easier. Is the challenge enough to motivate you to keep playing? Does charging into a warehouse filled with zombies to retrieve a package knowing that it almost certain death and that your only rewards if you succeed will be money and a reputation increase, which in turn may allow you to move on to infiltrating military bases reward enough? Incidentally death in this case would only cost you time and money. So in effect you could be risking a large sum of money to gain a smaller sum.
I don't like that sort of gameplay, because it leads to abyssmal success rates and repetitive play. It comes down to memorizing the location of every enemy and gun turret, and then going through again and again until you have a perfect run. It's not that much fun.
What's worse is that you do this for hours, even days, and have a 3% success rate (having "died" 97 times to beat three levels) and your reputation goes up. "Look at that guy," people say, "He's the one who took on all three crime syndicates and won without any super powers at all!" When in fact a thousand monkeys with a thousand joysticks could have accomplished the same feat. It's hollow.
What's worse is that you do this for hours, even days, and have a 3% success rate (having "died" 97 times to beat three levels) and your reputation goes up. "Look at that guy," people say, "He's the one who took on all three crime syndicates and won without any super powers at all!" When in fact a thousand monkeys with a thousand joysticks could have accomplished the same feat. It's hollow.
There is no spoon...
I'd say it's definately a motivating factor to be able to say you've beaten a game that's challenging in the way you've described, and I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to give such a game a shot for bragging rights; If the game is actually very difficult, then it actually means something to be able to say you've finished it.
However, as ICC mentioned this can lead to horrible rates of failure, repetative gameplay, and a whole world of frustration for players. A lot of people will probably never finish such a game, and will probably dissuede others from purchasing a copy.
So, the question is whether or not you can somehow make a game with a high risk of failure (and a character who isn't overwhelmingly powerful) and still avoid this frustration and repetition. Perhaps if death is worked into the gameplay in some way rather than simply forcing you to try again?
I'd say it's definately a motivating factor to be able to say you've beaten a game that's challenging in the way you've described, and I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to give such a game a shot for bragging rights; If the game is actually very difficult, then it actually means something to be able to say you've finished it.
However, as ICC mentioned this can lead to horrible rates of failure, repetative gameplay, and a whole world of frustration for players. A lot of people will probably never finish such a game, and will probably dissuede others from purchasing a copy.
So, the question is whether or not you can somehow make a game with a high risk of failure (and a character who isn't overwhelmingly powerful) and still avoid this frustration and repetition. Perhaps if death is worked into the gameplay in some way rather than simply forcing you to try again?
Quote:Now that I have your attention
You've got my attention... Damn that title... [wink]
Quote:Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
I don't like that sort of gameplay, because it leads to abyssmal success rates and repetitive play. It comes down to memorizing the location of every enemy and gun turret, and then going through again and again until you have a perfect run. It's not that much fun.
Agreed. It worked in the "good old days", when you had arcade games which basically repeated the same level, but faster and faster, because each level didn't take too long. If you died, you didn't waste too much time.
I think that's the problem. What you're making sounds like each mission could take a while. No one in their right minds want to lose hours of their time because an insane game designer wants to kill them.
If you want to make a game like this, and yes, it can work and has worked before, then you need to ensure that when the player dies (which will happen often. Very often), they don't have to repeat the last 4 hours of play. A couple of minutes are ok, but not much more than that.
Other than that, how is the money thing supposed to work? You lose money when dying, but gain money for completing a mission.
What if you run out of money? Game over?
I think this is actually not a bad idea, in the sense that you can have impossible missions. Wait, and hear me out first.
The mission would only be impossible should you try to face every enemy head on. Should you come up with an alternative, going with the OPs example of the zombie infested warehouse, like bringing cows outside of the warehouse and luring the zombies out with the cows. Then the warehouse wouldn't be so much of a problem.
--Ter'Lenth
The mission would only be impossible should you try to face every enemy head on. Should you come up with an alternative, going with the OPs example of the zombie infested warehouse, like bringing cows outside of the warehouse and luring the zombies out with the cows. Then the warehouse wouldn't be so much of a problem.
--Ter'Lenth
Author
Quote:Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
I don't like that sort of gameplay, because it leads to abyssmal success rates and repetitive play. It comes down to memorizing the location of every enemy and gun turret, and then going through again and again until you have a perfect run. It's not that much fun.
What's worse is that you do this for hours, even days, and have a 3% success rate (having "died" 97 times to beat three levels) and your reputation goes up. "Look at that guy," people say, "He's the one who took on all three crime syndicates and won without any super powers at all!" When in fact a thousand monkeys with a thousand joysticks could have accomplished the same feat. It's hollow.
What part don't you like? The fact that it is easy to loose if you confront things head on? Or the fact that in those games indirect engagement is limited? What if you can learn the position of every enemy, security measure before or during a mission?
Generely most mission will be one shot deals, so if you are you loose then you have failed that mission. But they are all procedurally generated and non are required. The exception is with mission that have a fixed target such as infiltrating the base of operations for a cyber criminal you will have a number of attempts at it before the criminal relocates.
Author
Quote:Original post by Kazgoroth
There is no spoon...
I'd say it's definately a motivating factor to be able to say you've beaten a game that's challenging in the way you've described, and I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to give such a game a shot for bragging rights; If the game is actually very difficult, then it actually means something to be able to say you've finished it.
However, as ICC mentioned this can lead to horrible rates of failure, repetative gameplay, and a whole world of frustration for players. A lot of people will probably never finish such a game, and will probably dissuede others from purchasing a copy.
So, the question is whether or not you can somehow make a game with a high risk of failure (and a character who isn't overwhelmingly powerful) and still avoid this frustration and repetition. Perhaps if death is worked into the gameplay in some way rather than simply forcing you to try again?
Perhaps the question I should ask is how do you make things challenging but not frustating? You can loose very easily in a direct confrontation but attempting the mission still has to be fun and rewardings enough so that you don't delete the game after you've failed a third time in a row. Is there away to achieve this without relying on an adaptive algorthim to alter the mission diffiuclty behind the scenes?
Author
Quote:Original post by Spoonbender
Agreed. It worked in the "good old days", when you had arcade games which basically repeated the same level, but faster and faster, because each level didn't take too long. If you died, you didn't waste too much time.
I think that's the problem. What you're making sounds like each mission could take a while. No one in their right minds want to lose hours of their time because an insane game designer wants to kill them.
If you want to make a game like this, and yes, it can work and has worked before, then you need to ensure that when the player dies (which will happen often. Very often), they don't have to repeat the last 4 hours of play. A couple of minutes are ok, but not much more than that.
Other than that, how is the money thing supposed to work? You lose money when dying, but gain money for completing a mission.
What if you run out of money? Game over?
Well basically you don't go on these dangerous missions yourself you send a remote drone instead. Drones cost money to build, equip and maintain. The equipment you give a drone determines what it can and can not do on a mission. So if a drone is destroyed during a mission you have no choice but to build a new one. So one of my concerns is that players might get a little upset if they just invested a million credits into building the most advanced drone money can buy, only to have it destroyed on a mission where the reward is only 10,000 credits.
As to how long a mission can take well I'm not sure I do think they will take maybe 5 to 30 minutes? I'll have to play test and find out.
Author
Quote:Original post by Terlenth
I think this is actually not a bad idea, in the sense that you can have impossible missions. Wait, and hear me out first.
The mission would only be impossible should you try to face every enemy head on. Should you come up with an alternative, going with the OPs example of the zombie infested warehouse, like bringing cows outside of the warehouse and luring the zombies out with the cows. Then the warehouse wouldn't be so much of a problem.
--Ter'Lenth
That is sort of the plan to have to player use environment, avoidence, and tool strategies to complet missions rather then confrontation. Although I could probably still allow you to attach a mini gun to your drone and let you gun down innocent zombies left right and center but I'll decide that later. For now you have short range stun gun as your only weapon.
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