53: Kill Your Darlings

[Wickedshot]

Definately coming from a RPG perspective, it's my favourite kind. A thing to note about health bars, the idea of displaying them through character is not new. Wolfenstein 3D had your characters face (in the UI, next to the health %) and it got bruised and bloodier the more damage he took.

The idea of showing the characters damage on the character is more for 3rd person games, but even in first person it'd be useful for immersion (enemies/allies would look more damaged instead of having less health on their health bars). Playing a FPS and seeing your enemy limp away bleeding on the ground would be more satisfying I imagine.

 

[avocado [deprecated]]

there seems to be a lot of talk about immersion in games of late and i just wonder if maybe i missed something in what immersion should be. in my experience of games (RPGs being my favourite) stats and health bars etc werent really detracting from the game or my own immersion in it. they were just displaying information that was required for me to make a descision which in fact immersed me even further in the game.

Also i dont think it would really work to have health or other attributed like strength or speed etc displayed only as physical attributes on the character. I want to know exactly how strong my character is and just looking at his size it would be hard to tell unless there were very easily defined levels where you looked substantially different in each.(thus defeating the purpose of immersion in this way) also it would become, i would think, impossible to display traits like magic defense or vitality purely in a graphic form. What i do like to see is the character displaying their growing strength or diminishing health in parallel with their stats.

I also like in RPGs when i need to decide whether im going to use a sword with attack 4 and speed 2 or attack 2 and speed 4. for me its all about the tactics and the trade offs and the character development that makes an RPG entertaining and this relates back to what dos boot was saying about the actual underlying gameplay. I look at it like chess (dont really play it but its a good analogy) if there were two kingdoms attacking each other its not realistic for example to have cavalry that can only move forward a few spaces and not back(or any of the other arbitrary rules of chess). however the entertainment value in such a classic game as chess isnt in its accurate moddelling of reality but in the descisions made by and interactions betweent each of players. I think that if the descisions that need to be made and the way in which characters interact can stay fresh and exciting then thats when the player becomes immersed in the game.

 

[Bongo Bill]

There's an enormous difference between "immersion" and "interest." Immersion has benefits of its own, but if games are a medium for entertainment then "interest" is really what we ought to be pursuing.

 

[Wickedshot]

I definately see the enjoyment derived from stats and playing by stats in a logical puzzle type game (typically its a game of 'defeat the game engine'), don't get me wrong, but when it comes to immersion (really getting into the world and story of the game), I think conflictual information does detract.

Health bars in conjunction with a character model that looks perfectly fine all the time is conflictual information.
A max strength character who is capable of carrying 40 sets on armour on their back who appears as thin as a reed is conflictual information.

I would never say all games should be made this way, but for truly immersive games (not games you can stand outside of and methodically plan and orchestrate) there should be as few conflicts of this nature as possible.

 

[phoenixsflame [deprecated]]

I'm with Bob-Arctor here, I want something like that. No Stat's, if I wanted to crunch Stat's I'd DM a D&D Game. I want RPG's to be less about stat choosing, and more about choosing spells/swords/styles/etc

 

[dosboot]

But where is the feedback in the input/output loop? If you hide stats then the gameplay becomes shallow. You say you want to choose spells and swords, but if you know less about that choice then the designer has to make those choices less meaningful; He can't expect you to not make bad choices.

 

[phoenixsflame [deprecated]]

DOS -

That's not true at all. You can relate with all in-game information, the effects of ones decision. There doesn't need to be stat's to make something strategic. You can get across weaknesses and strengths, approaches and balances by making *In-Game* remarks.

"The school of (Blank) is the most powerful school for damage, but with the long casting times one has to ensure not to be interrupted."

Or

"The lance has a distinct advantage over the sword, but the axe is stronger against the lance due to its heft and ability to cut through the lance instead of being deflected..."

Just because there is a system, doesn't mean we have to come right out and SAY exactly what is going on. You can hint and point and make broad statements without having to take the realism out of it.

The designer's of such games would be creating a world around the system, and a story in said world. As Bob-Arctor said, if you're a scrawny weakling, you're not going to carry 300kg of equipment. But, if you work out often and train yourself up you can see the body mass change and you can start lifting bigger loads. There would be a stress guage, a bar that -- just like an RPM gauge on a car -- would show how much you were straining with a load and you could guage how much more to lift and remove. The more the controller rumbles, the closer you are to your limit.

That's where innovation comes in, instead of making for lazy Designers, it makes for interesting games. Sure, we could stick to the same B.S. with numbers, but if the designers/developers are allowed (and I'm sure most would like too) to get away from the monotonous B.S. of number crunching Min/Maxing gaming... they may really develop something good.

 

[dosboot]

If you can get away with not using numbers - like your examples - then yes that's fine. I openly admit that many RPG's in particular give you numbers that are more precise then you need to know. Like instead of health/damage numbers they could have the character's themselves look beat up and hurt when they get hit.

You can't always do that though. Fire Emblem isn't going to work with graphical damage. It'd inevitably be either too imprecise or too incomprehensible (too many graphics to remember). I could never put up playing an estimation game every time I needed to assess how much damage that enemy deals and how much health this character has left when a pure number is quicker and better.

Is the health bar a knifeblade against the throat of video games? That is what the author's thesis is. Games have to evolve out of these conventions or die. He wants everything to be perfectly immersive and I'm saying it can't be done. Sometimes hiding the gameplay will just frustrate the player (or bore him if you dumb down the game to compensate). And when hiding the underlying gameplay can be done it is not a make or break, live or die improvement. I'm still not going to enjoy Final Fantasy with zero stats if I don't enjoy it with the conventional RPG system.

 

[Gearoid Reidy]

Some really excellent points here, and I'm glad to see what type of arguments people have for taking the opposing view.

BongoBill's point about artificial limitations is an important one. Artificial limitations are, literally, the very essence of a game. And that's fine in a puzzle, or in Super Mario, or something that's not trying to show a real world.

But the problem I have now is where developers are spending so much effort to create a world that looks, to all extents and purposes, real - but are still using the SAME artificial limitations as they used in games that had no pretense to reality whatsoever. This creates a very strange dichotomy between the expression of reality and the game. Wickedshot's 'conflictual information' was a great way to put it. It's like when you a read a poorly-written book, where the character makes decisions that no real person would make - it suspends your belief in the world that is trying to be created, sucks you right out of it, thus making all the effort to create an immersive, realistic world a complete waste.

About stats: I agree with roc ingersol's post about making us do math. I know a lot of people are still in tabletop, but I think RPGs have to cast off these shackles. The tabletop style of gaming has limitations. Gaming should have none.

The other thing about stats is that they make things too definite. The great thing about, shall we say, boxing in real life is that even though all the odds (or the stats) may be against them, in any given fight the underdog always has a chance. Stats take away this element of chance (of course, there's usually a 'lucky hit' element in most games, but even with this the beginning player will never, ever beat the final boss). In a real-life fight, I don't know if my punch is going to cause 50 HP of damage, or how much protection my trainers will really provide.

avocado's point about chess was interesting as well. RPG battle systems are like chess - except that none of them are even remotely as interesting. Frankly, if I wanted to play a tactical game like chess, well, I'd just play chess. When I sit down to play an RPG, however, what I want is an immersive storyline, a long quest, and generally some interesting puzzles. RPGs which have interesting combat (Zelda, for example) have a definite plus.

Is it about immersion, or is it about fun? Great question. I think that's a question that will be examined in an Escapist a few issues from now. I have to say though that with the right talent, it doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.

 

[Bongo Bill]

With many styles of game it's simply impractical to use graphical indicators to represent damage. People show damage in very subtle ways - bleeding, discoloration, limping. Of these, limping is the only one the player would really notice without paying special attention to it. Consider that in a normal game, if it shows the avatar at all, it shows the back of them as a very small model that the player usually doesn't look at. A different medium of expressing damage is needed, I think, not to simplify the mathematics, but because no computer can reach the level of immersion needed to convey physical pain without some level of abstract symbology, not without some very creative art and sound direction.

I think the next step would be to add changes in models and animation to the existing health-bar setup, and then switch out the health bar to something that represents pain - say the screen flashes red every time the character tries to walk on a broken leg. There's still many limitations to this: how are you going to indicate the pain of a bullet wound? Would you, for example, paint large wounds in a translucent or transparent red directly on the middle of the screen, as a HUD element? (personally I think that would be really cool, somebody go do a game like that)

If it doesn't work on a standard definition 24-inch television several feet away, then it's probably too subtle. Pain isn't subtle, though, so why should the new indicators of damage be subtle?

Not to mention there is still a case to be made for showing all the numbers in a boring and unrealistic manner. In some cases, making the information available to the character more realistic causes the game to become much more complicated. At this point, the numbers stop being a confusing block of intimidating numerals and start becoming relaxing tokens for the player to manipulate.

Gearoid: no strategy system in a video game is as interesting as chess? Well, maybe not in RPGs. RPG strategies are long-term strategies, built around inventory management and planning. If you want a more combat-oriented strategy then you'd need a TRPG. Or an adventure game to take away all the numbers.

My bias may be inapplicable to the real world. Unlike many people I don't find any level of math even remotely intimidating. In every video game I find myself breaking it all down into the math behind it, and I appreciate it when a game presents the numbers for me so I don't have to guess.

 

[Wickedshot]

I'm considering a game like Oblivion when I think about representing health. Making it really bloody (in a world of greys and browns, bright red sticks out) is one way to go, limb loss too, or painful shrieks. I think it's entirely possible with today's engines.

If you were to try it for say, Ultima Online, it might become difficult, since yes, the character models end up being small and you're very limited in what you can show (that game is still the best MMO ever!). But in GTA or Oblivion types, you can go third person view where your character is capable of displaying a lot.
This level of immersion is definately not suited to all games: a FPS without a health bar is a bad idea since you aren't going to be able to see your character; a spaceship game like EVE is not lacking in immersion when you can see a bar of % shields or the like, since my spaceship better damn well have such or I'd go after the seller for shoddy goods! I'd only ever want this in a third person roleplaying game, or maybe an arcade fighting game.

It's all for the sake of immersion and story based gameplay, there are "roleplaying" games that need numbers to make them interesting (Lineage 2 for example), since greater numbers (more HP, more damage, more PVP wins!!) are the basis of the game and any attachment one has to their character (due to limited options and path controlled advancement). Still good games (I enjoy figuring out formulas and math puzzles, and those games have a lot of variables and interactions), but when I think of real role playing, immersion is key and numbers are distractions.

 

[phoenixsflame [deprecated]]

Why are we only focusing on the avatar taking the damage?

Why not have it be a haze? If we're talking an FPS, or an Action-RPG (A la Oblivion), why not start hazing the screen... Giving a pale white fog to the distance when you're minorly hurt, turn it pinker and pinker until it's red and closing in. When your health is below one quarter the controller can vibrate with your heart-rate and the screen can pulse slightly around the edges.


THAT is not subtle, and if you've ever been in excrucating pain, you know that everything is brighter and more accute, but nothing outside of the direct sphere of influence is noticable. Plus, the pulsing effect is like the "Aural" effect of a migraine. If you keep it to a light pulse, just something one would notice out of the corner of their eye, it would work very well.

I am not intimidated by Math in the least, I run D&D campaigns completely in my head, I've even taken all the Math out of the game for my players and done it myself to allow a completely immersive game for my players...

But, if I am a player, I want to Role Play... Pure and simple, not roll play, I don't want it all to be about Math and figuring out how to get that additional +2 Str. I want to be considering "I have Mastered the Longsword... Thus, I will use this longsword, it is my families longsword." Or "I am learning the Axe, but I'm getting beaten the snot out of by mages, I need to learn a short bow."

Or.
"I have never fired a gun before, so I need to practice... I'm going to go shoot at bottles for a short time in game, and it can be training to make my hands (cursor/crosshair) shake less."

I don't think items should have nearly the effect they do in game as they do, I don't think a sword should double the amount of damage you do. But, I'm for more realism, and sure Magic weapons make a game enjoyable, but I'd like to see something more akin to Bushido Blade.

 

[Wickedshot]

Like you say, I'm far from intimidated by math, in fact my intimacy with (and educated knowledge of) mathematics is my greatest reason for wanting a game that does not display it. In Morrowind/Oblivion I end up figuring out the puzzle of the stats/skills, which then dictates the "best" way for me to play, which consequently is not the fun way to play (but not playing that way is obviously self-limiting). It's almost like unravelling a sweater.

Screen pulses of that nature have been done in a few games. Ultima 7 had the red flashes of the screen (another neat thing about avatar display done in U7: characters had a red outline when they took damage, and a green outline when they were poisoned, and other outlines for spells and such); Ultima Online has the darkened/foggy edges of the screen when you're dead (a spirit); Dungeons & Dragons Online has the darkening/foggy effect when you are semi conscious (0 to -9 hp) that gets worse the closer you get to death, and which turns the world gray and blurry when you're a spirit.
Controller vibrations are nice too, and are done in most consol games that I can think of.

First person can definately have these effects, the reason I'm focusing on avatars is because it seems like developpers have completely forgotten them (where as some games have managed to add effects for first person). The only expression of health in third person besides health bars seems to be alive or dead (a little too binary for me). Another benefit to focusing on third person avatars is the applicability to other characters (like monsters or npcs, even in first person games). I do want to know if my character is hurt/poisoned/maimed/bleeding, but it's also important to immersion to be able to tell if your enemy (or ally) is as well.

 

[te2rx [deprecated]]

This may be a bit repetitive at this point, but there's a game called Operation Flashpoint that does a good job of representing damage without a health bar. You get shot in the leg or something, you lose the ability to run (IIRC). You get shot in the leg again, you fall down. You try to get up, and your character screams in agony and falls down again (at this point you need to reload, or call a medic, or complete the mission by driving a vehicle if that's possible). If you get shot in general, your aim gets very, very shaky. Your view even gets a red tint (again IIRC). There's even a mod for Flashpoint ("WGL" I think) that adds more to the damage model -- Get shot critically and you hear your heart beating loudly as you leave a trail of blood. Eventually you collapse and die if you cannot get treated medically.

In general: I agree with a lot of points, but if you look at something like a JRPG, realism isn't their focus to begin with. Take away the numbers and replace it with visual cues... you're still suddenly zooming into a battle stage and using your ultimate attack on some group of squirrels. Even moreso for a "tactics" game like FFT. Realism is just a style, not the One Path to immersion nor the ultimate objective of every game. I think the game has to commit to realism before it can use the aesthetics of realism. You can't really jam it in to Soul Calibur, you have to change the core game into something like Bushido Blade which is a totally different game. Otherwise there's no way to realistically explain away how your fighters are getting stabbed all the time in every battle and surviving it. Likewise, a "tactics" RPG has to become more like Jagged Alliance 2 before it can approach realism.

Where the problem seems to lie (IMO) is games not really having a good sense whether they want to commit to realism as a style, or a more abstract gamish style (with numbers and indicators and whatnot). When there's confusion over what the style should be, you get games like Oblivion where the world is both somewhat realistic but also awkwardly forced/artificial in several of its aspects.

 

[Tohoya]

I completely disagree with the author?s focus on realism. Ultimately, for me at least, the game is simply numbers. An RPG could disguise its mechanics as armies clashing, as adventurers fighting off enemies, as a sport, as gladiatorial arenas, as business, or as space combat. The important part is not that the mechanics match the metaphor but that the mechanics in and of themselves make for compelling strategic decisions. I don?t care if the turn-based model is unrealistic; what I do care is whether or not choosing to attack with a fire spell or a sword gives me meaningful strategic options. This applies to the ?lifebar? theory in fighting games as well: I don?t care that it?s not realistic when it creates entertaining gameplay. Ditto on what a previous poster said about weapon stats: I enjoy knowing precisely what an object does and appreciate full disclosure on the battle system?s mechanics. I may be an autistic dork, but I enjoy crunching the numbers to determine which option is more efficient. If the author is so concerned with mass market penetration, realism is the last thing to emphasize. The realistic flight sim?s audience is even more niche than the standard console RPG?s. I agree with the author on save points and fetch quests, though.

I see you are coming from the RPG genre perspective, and that makes me less surprised you want to remove the healthbar. There is rarely any point to thinking about the underlying gameplay in RPG's anymore. Even when the game offers enough depth in the command system the game is still too easy to bother thinking about it (like I said, I'm a pretty dissatisfied gamer). I guess I'd agree that the legacy of healthbars, xp points, damage stats, etc. is overly game-y for accomplishing what is always a simpler idea. I prefer to think of it in reverse though: These games could be more challenging to justify thinking at that level of abstraction.

Yeah, RPGs tend to be too easy nowadays, but there are ways to fix that. From player mods that make the game harder, to user-created content that?s harder than the main quest, to gamesharking to degrade your character?s stats, to voluntary restrictions put on your options (my favorite being low-level challenges, which put a cap on the levels you can gain from random battles at certain points in the game. Once you reach that level, you have to flee the battles), there are a lot of ways to make the game challenging enough to make that mastery mean more. And once you do, the true design genius of games like Final Fantasy X and Pokemon become clear.

A note on leveling: I personally enjoy leveling when there is a marked difference in tactics between levels. This adds variety to the game. Getting hastega in FFX markedly changes your battle strategy; picking up fireball at level 5 in D&D changes the gameplay decisions quite profoundly. If you just get more of better though, it?s just lazy and not very fun aside from ?yay, I can deal 1000 damage now!?

But the problem I have now is where developers are spending so much effort to create a world that looks, to all extents and purposes, real - but are still using the SAME artificial limitations as they used in games that had no pretense to reality whatsoever. This creates a very strange dichotomy between the expression of reality and the game. Wickedshot's 'conflictual information' was a great way to put it. It's like when you a read a poorly-written book, where the character makes decisions that no real person would make - it suspends your belief in the world that is trying to be created, sucks you right out of it, thus making all the effort to create an immersive, realistic world a complete waste.

This I can agree with. It seems to me that they are operating at cross-purposes, and personally, I wouldn?t mind if they scaled back the realistic graphics and focused on the abstractions more.

[quote="Gearois Ready?] The other thing about stats is that they make things too definite. The great thing about, shall we say, boxing in real life is that even though all the odds (or the stats) may be against them, in any given fight the underdog always has a chance. Stats take away this element of chance (of course, there's usually a 'lucky hit' element in most games, but even with this the beginning player will never, ever beat the final boss). In a real-life fight, I don't know if my punch is going to cause 50 HP of damage, or how much protection my trainers will really provide. [/quote]
Here I must disagree. A modicrum of chance involved dispatches with the definite argument, and moreover, the introduction of chance can be a powerful strategic tool. I enjoy being able to quantify chance and match it up against probably outcomes. Do I go with an attack that has a 50% chance of doing 50 damage or a 100% chance of 30 damage? That?s an obvious choice in favor of the latter, but what if my enemy is down to 49 health: do I go for the immediate KO or play it safe for the guaranteed two-turn KO?

 

[Bongo Bill]

Thanks. You've articulated my preference of visible stats in a much better way than I'd have liked to.

If you consider entertainment software, there's a mostly one-dimensional continuum between "game" and "simulation." The more information you have, I think, the more toward "game" it is, whereas the greater the realism, the more of a "simulation." The value of simulation is in the exploration of an idea or a different setting, whereas a game's entertainment value is simpler and arguably more pure, since it's not tied down to the player's external knowledge.

The industry can only be mature when there's a wide offering of both styles of design. To the extent that the article is advocating a broad shift toward more "simulation"-end entertainment, I disagree, but to the extent that it advocates taking "game"-like elements out of simulations touted as "realistic," then I agree completely.

 

[EkEMaN]

I agree with most of the things you have said. I've often been puzzled by how the leader is also the strongest. Isn't the leader supposed to be the smartest? When did the leader decide "Hey, somebody might eventually kill off all of my soldiers so I better weight lift, get a gigantic gun and take enough crack cocaine to block out pain completely!"

And I am also plagued with the indestructible wooden doors. It's even worse when you can destroy some doors and not others (like in Stranglehold, destroy anything you want... except for the doors).