Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 30 2024, 4:09 am by MetalGear.

Awesome topic. Here's what I'll add:

Another way to say "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game." If given choice between fun option and efficient option, players often will go for the efficient option at cost of fun. That's why it's important to make meaningful properly balanced choices (no easy matter).

I would add that you can do this sometime but only in short bursts. Players want to be challenged and if they get god mode / massive damage they aren't challenged and stop having fun.

Nox is a good example of doing this right. You spend the whole game hunting for four pieces to assemble the legendary Staff of Nox. Once you finally have the staff, for a brief moment you wield massive power and huge waves of enemies come at you, which would easily snuff you out previously, but because you have the staff, you annihilate them all, and it is awesome fun. But then you lose the staff and the game continues at your previous power level.

Another example is the end of Half Life 2, your gravity gun gets supercharged and the music kicks in and you are just an absolute god picking up soldiers and ragdolling them across the room.

So it can be done but save it for climax moments and don't let it outstay its welcome and bore the player.

I am curious to know your reason for this. I get the idea of having some area that you can never get to until the very end (Labrinyhtos RPG map does this well, you always see this walled off area in zone 1 but it's not until the very end of the game where you unlock the air unit and can fly over the wall and finally see what's inside)...

...but why specifically does it have to be the MIDDLE?

I always remember fondly a great moment in the game Dead Space. Elevators are always a safe space, you can finally relax and catch your breath as the game loads the next level while you're in the elevator. But at one time in the game, a zombie actually jumps out of a vent while you're in the elevator, causing you to shit your pants.

To generalise/summarise that, a good way to surprise the player is train them to expect something (eg. the elevator is always safe), and then, when they least expect it (mid or late game when the expectation has become engrained) suddenly break that 'rule' (zombie jumps you in the elevator).

Many games can be made without story, just look at Super Mario Bros it has basically no story (your princess is in another castle). I think fun factor is more important than story, but of course if you can have your take and eat it to then hell yes.

I will say, good story is what elevates games from simple entertainment to works of art, imo. Having fun is all well and good, but actually reaching someone on an emotional level will create a whole new bond with your game/map.

Writing a story especially a good one also is its own entire genre. There's so much that goes into crafting a story that saying "make a good story" is hardly helpful advice. It's no easy feat or simple matter. So many Hollywood movies today even with millions of dollars and whole writing staffs still struggle to consistently make good stories.

I don't know about this. Many games use attribute points for a reason including massive franchises like Diablo. I think attribute systems are appealing because they give players the ability to fine tune their builds. I do agree that it can be boring in the long run though. I think this is why D4 now toys with "paragon boards" where they've essentially turned attribute point spending into its own little minigame where you have to chart a route through an attribute point maze.

I thought of another cool idea while I was taking a dump at work today:

Bosses with one kill moves are a bit annoying to fight against. Most boss fights are learn the bosses patterns, then win. And until you do that, you get killed a lot.

So instead to make it a bit more enjoyable and smooth out this learning curve a bit, do something like this:

0 - boss fight starts
1 - First time you get hit by bosses one hit kill attack, only do ~25% damage
2 - second time, do ~70% damage
3 - third time, one hit kill!

By giving the attacks a charge up period players can still learn the patterns but with less deaths and having to restart from scratch.

You could also then slowly erase this charge up period after subsequent attempts if you want the tutorial period to last only a short while but that could result in things like save scumming by players so they can stil have the easier fights so be wary of that.

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