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SID MEIER: One of the responsibilities I think
we have as designers is to protect the player…

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from themselves

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Whenever a designer makes a game, they‘ll
have certain ideas for what would be the most

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enjoyable or interesting way for a player
to approach things.

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For example, Jake Solomon reckons that XCOM
is at its best when the player is taking risks.

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He told Rock Paper Shotgun: “Risks are what lead to loss and what lead to triumph".

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But players will often have other ideas, because
many will simply gravitate towards strategies

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that will most likely lead to success - regardless
of how enjoyable those strategies might actually

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be - so they grind, they use repetitive tactics,
and they play slowly and cautiously.

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As Civilization 4 designer Soren Johnson puts
it, “given the opportunity, players will

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optimise the fun out of a game”.

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He was talking more about exploits,
but I think the quote still works.

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And this is kinda what happened in XCOM: players
rarely took risks, because why would you?

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Instead, they found much more success when
they moved slowly, played cautiously, and

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overused the overwatch ability - meaning they
often ended up playing each mission in largely

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the same, risk-averse way.

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But the awesome thing about design is that
the game’s developers can tweak things,

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to make sure players approach the game in
the way they think would be most interesting.

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The question is - what’s the best way to
do this?

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The most obvious answer would be to
add some kind of system that will stop the

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unwanted behaviour from occurring.

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And that’s what exactly Firaxis did when
it decided to introduce turn-limits to standard

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missions in XCOM 2.

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Many of the game’s missions will have some
kind of time limit - hack the network in 8

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turns, destroy the relay in 6 turns, extract
the VIP in 12 turns.

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And if you don’t finish that objective within
the turn limit, the mission is failed.

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And this means that inching slowly across
the map like in XCOM 1 is now massively discouraged,

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and the player is forced to move more quickly
and take more risks.

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A very similar thing happened in the making
of Spelunky.

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Creator Derek Yu says “I never intended
Spelunky players to collect every piece of

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treasure, get every item, or explore every
room each time they play.

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Instead, I wanted to force them to make difficult
decisions and experience both the satisfaction

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of choosing correctly and the regret of choosing
poorly.”

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So, he added the deadly ghost enemy which
appears at about two and a half minutes into

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every level to put pressure on the player
and discourage them from dawdling around.

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Now both of these decisions had the intended
effect - but they were also both met with

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some amount of controversy.

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Spelunky less so - that’s a long time to
spend in one level.

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Besides, the ghost doesn’t actually kill
you. You can still run away and finish the stage.

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But many XCOM 2 players hated the turn limits,

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and even made mods to rip them out of the
game.

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“I didn't expect people to have such a strong
reaction to the timers,” says Solomon.

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And turn limits were greatly reduced in the
game’s expansion, War of the Chosen.

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So, what went wrong?

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Well, there’s a bunch of things.

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Many people simply just enjoyed playing cautiously
in the first game, and expected to do so in

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the sequel.

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And Solomon suggests that “maybe there’s
a clumsy thematic wrapper on the turn-timer”.

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But one thing is clear: some players will
always react negatively to punishment.

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And, in XCOM 2, the fact that refusing to
speed up and take risks will see you fail

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the mission at hand, means that these players
felt that the game was punishing them for

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playing in a certain way.

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And there’s a famous story about World of
Warcraft - which I’ve never played so excuse

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me if I screw this up - but in the story,
Blizzard didn’t want people to play the

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game for too long - so they introduced a system
in the beta where the longer you played, the

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fewer experience points you’d get for killing
monsters and whatnot.

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But players hated it.

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They hated seeing the numbers going down.

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It felt like a punishment for playing the
game.

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So Blizzard did something pretty clever: they
flipped the system on its head.

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Now, players can build up a rest bonus whenever
they’re not playing the game, and then get

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an experience points boost when they next
log in.

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It’s essentially the same numbers, says
Blizzard, but making it a reward rather than

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a penalty made it much more agreeable to fans.

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So, it’s often better to encourage the behaviour
you want, than discourage the behaviour you don’t.

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Instead of punishing a player who is too slow,
reward a player who finishes the level quickly.

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And there are loads of good ways to encourage
player behaviour.

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It starts with the fundamental, moment-to-moment
gameplay, where designers can tweak the game’s

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most basic mechanics to push players towards
a certain style of play.

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Take the latest DOOM, where the designers
wanted to promote an aggressive sort of “push

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forward combat”.

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One way id Software achieved this was through
the glory kill mechanic which provided plenty

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of compelling reasons to close in on your
foes, instead of running away and firing from

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a safe distance.

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This move instantly kills an enemy, it doesn’t
use any ammunition, and it showers the player

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with useful health pick-ups.

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And so, despite years of FPS games training
players to run away and hide behind cover,

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in DOOM, players spend much of the game racing
headfirst towards demons.

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Likewise, Bloodborne encouraged players to
be more aggressive than they were in Dark

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Souls by adding the rally mechanic which lets
you recover health if you strike an enemy

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within a few seconds of taking damage.

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Players are less likely to back off and wait
for an opening if they have a chance to win

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back some health with a quick, aggressive
attack.

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Other examples of this sort of immediate encouragement might include the

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Burnout games, where you gather much-needed boost by doing all sorts

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of fun things like driving close to other cars and racing into oncoming traffic.

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You’ve gotta drive dangerously to win.

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And Hyper Light Drifter, where the only way
to recharge your gun is to slash bad guys

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with your sword, encouraging you to get up
close and personal with enemies.

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Encouragement can also be baked into more
abstract, overarching systems like scores.

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In most character action games, you can finish
the stage even if you’re pretty sloppy and

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rely on the same few tactics for the whole
game.

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But you’ll end up with a crappy grade at
the end of the level.

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To get a better grade, you need to play in
the way that the designers intended.

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So, for a game like Devil May Cry which is
all about being stylish, you’ll get better

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grades - plus, some handy items - if you use
varied and more difficult attacks, and use

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your guns to keep the combo ticking along.

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Likewise, Tony Hawk’s makes you connect
up different tricks to keep your combo going,

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and will give fewer points each time you repeat
a move.

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In all of these games, the only way to get
a high score is to play in the most stylish

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and interesting way possible, and to use the full extent of the game’s mechanics.

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Rewards like experience points and achievements
can also be used for this purpose, because

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the designer gets to choose exactly what sort
of activities or challenges the player must

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do to earn those points, and can tailor this
to reward players for taking actions that

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fit the game’s intended experience.

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GRAYSON HUNT: Ooh, son of a mother. Tech is wild. This cocky leash is grading my performance.

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Now, this is not to say that games should
never discourage, punish, or penalise people.

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This will always have a place in games.

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But for those games that do focus on negative
enforcement, they should be wary of pushing the

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slider from discouraging a playstyle, to practically
forcing you not to use it.

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Not to beat a dead horse, but playing fast
in XCOM 2’s timed missions is not just the

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best way to play - but, basically, the only
way to play.

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Because forcing a very specific playstyle
is difficult to pull off.

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I’m sure we’ve all played stealth games
where getting spotted by enemies leads to

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instant failure.

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And sure, this makes you play in a stealthy,
ninja-like manner, and doesn’t allow you

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to just Rambo your way through the game with
superior fire power, but it’s also annoying,

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and it gets rid of exciting moments like where
you get spotted but manage to escape and go

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back into hiding.

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So the goal is not necessarily to shut down
tactics that can lead to uninteresting playstyles.

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For example, if players are spending too much
time hiding safely behind cover in a shooter,

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when you’d prefer them to run around the
battlefield, you don’t have to remove cover entirely.

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It’s more often about keeping this stuff
as a valid tactic for certain situations - but

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tweaking them so the player will not abuse
or completely rely on them.

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So, you can discourage players from abusing
cover by having enemies throw in grenades

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or having cover break over time.

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Or you could encourage players to stay out
of cover by giving them points for fighting

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out in the open.

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And to go back to the stealth example, there
are better ways to encourage stealthy play

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than just insta-failing players who get spotted.

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You could discourage direct attacks by making
the player very weak.

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In the Arkham games, Batman is useless against
enemies with guns, so punching the crap out

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of guards during the stealth bits is a bad
tactic, but you can stay alive long enough

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to grapple hook your way back to safety.

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Or you could encourage stealth by using the
scoring systems mentioned earlier.

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In Hitman, the only way to get a high score,
or finish many of the challenges like Silent

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Assassin, is to play in the most sneaky way
possible.

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Never get seen, hide the bodies, delete the
camera recordings, and so on.

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Or, one less obvious way to tackle it, is
to make players more aware that direct attacks

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are not the focus of the game.

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With Mark of the Ninja, lead designer Nels
Anderson said that the game originally had

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an in-depth combat system with different stances
and parries and whatnot, but this level of

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depth signalled to the player that direct
combat was may more important than it actually was.

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By reducing the combat to something much more
simple, players now understood that direct

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attacks were not point.

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Anderson explained this on the podcast Designer
Notes,

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NELS ANDERSON: People would try to sneak,
they would fail, and then they’d just Rambo

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through the rest of the level.

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It’s like: okay, we just need to pair this
down, get rid of as much of it as possible,

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make it really simple.

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And once we just kept pairing it down to,
the amount of presence it had in the design

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was about proportional to how important we
thought it should be, that’s when it sat

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about right.

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So, designers should know how they want
players to approach their game.

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Perhaps stylishly, or stealthily, or while
taking risks, or using the full extent of

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the mechanics, or just feeling like a demon
murdering machine.

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Whatever they think is most fun, or interesting, or thematically relevant.

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But if a player can reach their goals - from
microscopic targets like “get health”

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or “defeat an enemy”, to longer-term goals
like “reach the end of the level” or “earn

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a new skill point” - if players can reach
those goals more easily through ways that

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don’t match that intention, and are actually
pretty boring, then the game might have a problem.

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Locking off that easier route is certainly
one way of going about it, but forcing players

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to meet your vision and punishing them for
playing otherwise, is fraught with difficulty.

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And so while I personally understand and even
appreciate XCOM 2’s turn timers in the broad

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strokes, I’m not surprised that they were met
with controversy.

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So, it’s often better to encourage and incentivise
a player to see the game in the best possible light.

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To allow for other playstyle, but give rewards,
high scores, easy kills, and handy resources

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when the player is meeting that intended experience.

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Now, please, this is definitely not as easy as I’m
making it sound.

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There are plenty of pitfalls to think about
and some of the most controversial and disliked

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mechanics are those that were initially designed
to encourage or discourage a certain way of playing.

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But when used really well, this type of design
can subtly push a player towards having the

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best possible experience, and, like Sid says,
protect players... from themselves.

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Hey, thanks for watching!

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I hope you found this one interesting.

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I love seeing all the differnet ways that designers
try to encourage and discourage different

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behaviours, and it’s fascinating to see
how successful they end up being.

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I’d love to hear your examples from games
you’ve played.

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Or games you’ve made, if you’re a designer.

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Leave ‘em in the comments below, if you
like.

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