How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves | Game Maker's Toolkit

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

from themselves

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

enjoyable or interesting way for a player
to approach things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

optimise the fun out of a game”.

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

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

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

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

the same, risk-averse way.

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

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

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

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

unwanted behaviour from occurring.

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

missions in XCOM 2.

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

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

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

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

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

A very similar thing happened in the making
of Spelunky.

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

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

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

of choosing correctly and the regret of choosing
poorly.”

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

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

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

some amount of controversy.

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

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

But many XCOM 2 players hated the turn limits,

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

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

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

So, what went wrong?

Well, there’s a bunch of things.

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

the sequel.

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

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

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

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

playing in a certain way.

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

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

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

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

But players hated it.

They hated seeing the numbers going down.

It felt like a punishment for playing the
game.

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

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

an experience points boost when they next
log in.

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

a penalty made it much more agreeable to fans.

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

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

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

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

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

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

forward combat”.

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

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

a safe distance.

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

with useful health pick-ups.

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

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

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

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

within a few seconds of taking damage.

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

back some health with a quick, aggressive
attack.

Other examples of this sort of immediate encouragement might include the

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

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

You’ve gotta drive dangerously to win.

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

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

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

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

rely on the same few tactics for the whole
game.

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

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

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

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

your guns to keep the combo ticking along.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

fit the game’s intended experience.

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

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

This will always have a place in games.

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

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

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

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

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

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

instant failure.

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

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

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

back into hiding.

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

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

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

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

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

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

or having cover break over time.

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

out in the open.

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

than just insta-failing players who get spotted.

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

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

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

to grapple hook your way back to safety.

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

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

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

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

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

are not the focus of the game.

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

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

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

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

attacks were not point.

Anderson explained this on the podcast Designer
Notes,

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

through the rest of the level.

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

make it really simple.

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

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

about right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

when the player is meeting that intended experience.

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

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

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

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

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

Hey, thanks for watching!

I hope you found this one interesting.

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

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

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

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

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

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