Streamlined vs. dumbed-down - great progressive game design article

[prophetik music]

why gamers need to wise up and realize "streamlined" doesn't mean "dumbed-down" - an interesting look at progressive game design and the games that use (or don't use) it - mass effect 2, bioshock 2, final fantasy xii, and heavy rain.

great read from maximum pc. the game boy always is a little direct in his commentaries, but he's got a lot of good points to make regarding the conundrum between excellent and forward-thinking game design and the nature of your standard 'hardcore' gamer.

what do you think? i agree with pretty much everything he has to say. i really love ME2, and i enjoyed FFXII's battle system way more than the system of any other game in the series. i wish that they had continued with that feel in FFXIII, honestly. i haven't touched bioshock 2 or heavy rain yet, unfortunately, so i can't speak about them.

[Arcana]

If you want to hear arguments about this for years, then talk about this kind of stuff in the context of World of Warcraft vs. "old school, hardcore MMORPGs" like FF13, DAoC, Everquest, and possibly even Aion.

WoW did away with things like harsh death penalties (no XP loss on death), reduced flying times, made it so that gold couldn't buy everything, and made it so that you played about an average of 4 to 5 hours to get a level up. Traditional MMORPGs? Punishment for dying (even at the hands of another player), expensive money sinks, long grinds to level, and so forth.

All of the non WoW players call the WoW players wowkids and lament the destruction of the MMORPG since Blizzard introduced the genre to the casuals.

[Thalzon]

Yahtzee touched on something in a recent article at the Escapist regarding this sort of thing, with Mass Effect 2 as his example. Since I haven't played it, I will use No More Heroes 2 as an example of streamlining.

Desperate Struggle definitely streamlined the original's gameplay. The hits come hard and fast, the game is more polished, and there's less tedium in terms of making money or getting from place to place. These things are good.

However, I felt a tinge of disappointment at the complete absence of being able to walk or drive about Santa Destroy. NMH2 reduces it to a mere menu, and we only see tiny sections of the city here and there. Ultimately, with the city gone, I was left a little wanting. The game world felt very small and limited. Even though the city was mostly empty in the original, it was there, and you could scour every nook and cranny for hidden goodies like T-shirts or special ability balls.

This has actually happened with RPGs a lot, especially since the last generation of consoles. Suddenly overworlds, fully-animated cutscenes, and exploration aren't as prominent. They've been replaced with menus, still character portraits, and linear dungeon crawls. Having a full overworld is now an exception rather than a rule. Having animated cutscenes for every interaction is something only the juggernauts of RPGs do, and even then only occasionally. It streamlines the game, removes a lot of the baggage that people might find tedious, but ultimately, it removes a lot of that immersive feeling.

[Vivi22]

It's an excellent article and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's noticed this over the years. I've been arguing the case for FFXII in particular in recent years, and after playing Heavy Rain, I have a feeling I'll be doing the same for it.

Somehow people thought that FFXII letting you automate mundane tasks like mashing the attack command was somehow worse than sitting there mashing the attack button everytime you hit a random battle. People complain that Heavy Rain might not even be a game, yet it gives the player a tremendous amount of control in how you play it. Somehow, because that control comes from quick time events and button press options, it's less of a game. Odd that it's pretty much the most immersive and enjoyable "role play" experience I've ever had in a game, and I really don't think it would work as well as it does if you added on more gameplay layers.

I guess the point I'm getting at is that it's nice I'm not the only one that realizes that trying something new and stream lining the more mundane aspects of a game doesn't mean that the game goes away. There are a lot of genres that benefit from it since you can cut away the things that lead to confusion or get in the way of good pacing. Now if only more people would keep an open mind about games that do things differently in the interests of offering a better experience.

[The Pezman]

Desperate Struggle definitely streamlined the original's gameplay. The hits come hard and fast, the game is more polished, and there's less tedium in terms of making money or getting from place to place. These things are good.

However, I felt a tinge of disappointment at the complete absence of being able to walk or drive about Santa Destroy. NMH2 reduces it to a mere menu, and we only see tiny sections of the city here and there. Ultimately, with the city gone, I was left a little wanting. The game world felt very small and limited. Even though the city was mostly empty in the original, it was there, and you could scour every nook and cranny for hidden goodies like T-shirts or special ability balls.

Actually, I have to disagree.

I mean, I agree that NMH2 is more streamlined. But I like the menu option. It was obvious in the original that the open-world thing was not done very well, as you admit. You couldn't affect the environment around you, you couldn't observe anyone's routine, you couldn't do any of that. It was just a way to get from place to place. And since it sucked, they took it out in the sequel.

The reason, I'd venture, why the sequel felt lacking is because there wasn't enough put in the open world's place. Travis is advertised as being at Rank 50, but [SPOILER] there are only a few more fights than in the first game. To me, this is terrible. It falls in line with Suda51's use of misdirection, but it felt more like a cheap cop out than anything else. If there had actually been 20 or 30-something bosses to fight, that would have been EPIC. And it would have more than made up for what they took out. Add to that the lack of a compelling plot (compared to the first) and a horrible final boss and I just wasn't feeling this game nearly as much as the first.

[prophetik music]

i'm a big fan of developers recognizing their weaknesses, like what they did in Desperage Struggle. they realized they couldn't fit a worthwhile overworld in a game of that size. Dragon Age did the same thing - the game would have been absolutely astronomical in size if they hadn't made it a menu-based overworld.

this is good thing, people - it's not just heaping piles of shit. it's creative applications to fix problems inherant in current architectures.

[Ramaniscence]

If you want to hear arguments about this for years, then talk about this kind of stuff in the context of World of Warcraft vs. "old school, hardcore MMORPGs" like FF13, DAoC, Everquest, and possibly even Aion.

WoW did away with things like harsh death penalties (no XP loss on death), reduced flying times, made it so that gold couldn't buy everything, and made it so that you played about an average of 4 to 5 hours to get a level up. Traditional MMORPGs? Punishment for dying (even at the hands of another player), expensive money sinks, long grinds to level, and so forth.

All of the non WoW players call the WoW players wowkids and lament the destruction of the MMORPG since Blizzard introduced the genre to the casuals.

More importantly old WoW verse new WoW. New WoW is INCREDIBLY streamlined compared to old WoW, and it's not that it's "easier" it's just that it's "Less of a fucking pain the ass from getting to point A to point B".

Sure, having to get together 40 people was epic, but fucking tiring, and stupid, and offered no real benefit. Sure having to go through every single raid, time after time after time to gear up for the next level raid was how we did it, but when you're 6 raids behind, and you level a new character, and now that you've hit max level you have to spend 4 more monthes just to catch up with current content? Fucking horse shit.

What annoys me the absolute MOST, though, is how people complain that WoW is easy now when the BEST GUILD IN THE WORLD beats THE LAST BOSS IN THE GAME after farming it for an entire day...on the easier version of the encounter on NORMAL MODE.

The game HAS a hardmode. You turn it on by switching it from "normal" to "hard", and when you switch it to "hard" it's fucking HARD. No one has even come CLOSE to beating the game on 25 man raids in HARDMODE. No on will for a long while, and when they do, not many will.

What DOESN'T make sense is that Blizzard would spend years building up to a storyline like we saw at the end of the Burning Crusade with the Sunwell, spend months designing, building, testing, and tuning really cool and fun encounters that less than 5% of the whole player base would see.

I get it, people are really hardcore and they want to feel super cool for doing something really hard in a video game and think they deserve like 3,000 cool points for doing it, and that other people shouldn't be able to get those cool points, but damnit Blizzard spends time working on content so people can actually EXPERIENCE it, not so people can watch your videos of you doing it on YouTube.

At what point does common sense click in when people start complaining about this stuff? Seriously.

Video games get better and "easier" as development goes on because people realize they were unnecessarily difficult and frustrating to begin with. These are video games we're talking about here. Games. For fun and recreation. Keyword: fun.

I did my time. I levelled to 60 and suffered the whole way and quit twice on my way there. I sat through TBC doing nothing but running karazhan every single week until I had every piece of gear I could possibly get and then I did Gruul and Mag a FEW times, almost never seeing any raid beyond that until the MONTH before Wrath.

Shit, I was leveling a tank LAST WEEK and I realized something about Outland instances: They were fucking stupid. Stealth mobs, everything gouges, or stuns, and then everything else mind controls and fears. Everything has to be line-of-site pulled, bosses have all kinds of luck mechanics, and all this for what? Gear that marginally better than the stuff you get by questing? Why the fuck did I ever do these? This is EXACTLY why NO ONE did heroic difficulty dungeons in TBC. These things aren't even remotely fun. They don't require any skills. They require menial probing, and meticulous, frustrating strategies only to be unsuccessful because the execution wasn't PERFECT and you had some bad luck. THIS ISN'T EVEN FRICKEN CLOSE TO ENDGAME.

Man...just...thank goodness Blizzard improves this game by leaps and bounds just about everytime they update it. Hopefully especially with Cataclysm because those first 60 level are absolutely anti-fun; they could suck the happiness out of a 10 year old getting a puppy and an ice cream cake for their birthday faster than the words "your gramma died."

[sephfire]

Video games get better and "easier" as development goes on because people realize they were unnecessarily difficult and frustrating to begin with. These are video games we're talking about here. Games. For fun and recreation. Keyword: fun.

Definitely. And games are also seeming easier to us veterans because we have been playing games for decades. We are very good at them now. Developers cannot afford to cater exclusively to our whims. It would create a huge barrier to entry for new gamers and possibly stagnate the industry.

[JackKieser]

I, in an overarching sense, agree with the article in the OP, but I think that the article's way of thinking totally disenfranchises gamers who, you know, liked some of the features in the first Mass Effect, and actually DO recognize that sometimes "streamlined" and "dumbed-down" ARE the same thing.

I love inventory management (not ME1's system, mind you; the menus definitely needed work). I absolutely love balancing items, comparing statistics, looking at equips like they are a big math puzzle, trying to find creative, inventive ways to squeeze that extra 1% cooldown reduction out of my armors or weapons. It's not for everyone, sure, but then again, a BIG staple of RPGs has always been statistics management. Taking statistics management out of your game is like telling Modern Warfare 2 that it needs less shooting.

Sure, RPGs have actual role playing as an important portion of their genre, but that's certainly not the defining factor by ANY means (which, I guess, means that the genre has always been a misnomer). You don't really make important story decisions in Chrono Trigger. The events of FF7 always play out the same way. RPGs are more about battle systems, stats tracking, and skills management than anything else.

For instance, just yesterday I was sitting with my friend and a classmate outside of our geology class talking about how obtuse and hard to manage Bethesda RPGs are, and how our classmate now strays away from RPGs because of Morrowwind and Oblivion. My friend asked me what good RPGs there were to draw this classmate back in, and I was going to suggest ME1, Fire Emblem, maybe even a Tales game. My friend cuts me off and suggests Borderlands. Borderlands is a GREAT game. I love it. It is a shooter first, and an RPG second. I play Borderlands when I want to play a shooter, not when I want to play an RPG. It is a shooter with RPG elements. That is what Bioware has turned ME2 into. There is no inventory management (instead of acutally doing the work to make their inventory system better, they got lazy and just took it out entirely), stats management is almost non-existent, there are literally 23 guns in the entire game, and only the Soldier class has access to them all; most classes can get 10-15 AT MOST, and that's including the heavy weapons, weapons can't be customized, the level cap was HALVED, and the skill pool for any given class was taken down by a quarter.

You know what would have streamlined the original ME? Cooldown reduction, reducing all skills from max lvl 12 to max lvl 10, one less skill per class, and a better inventory menu system. That's it. That's all that was needed. They took out so much stuff to "streamline" the game that they totally ignored the RPG purists who loved the game for the number crunching, who actually like to manage bars and juggle data. You can have fast-paced battles with strategic depth AND a robust character customization engine that allows for tactical depth BEFORE battle, too; they aren't mutually exclusive.

Don't get me wrong; I love ME2. I'm on my second completionist run, and I'm going to be starting a Renegade run in a few days. I have the Collectors Edition (lol puns), and probably won't put this one down for a good few more weeks / months / until Metroid: Other M comes out.

...but anyone who actually thinks that there were NO parts to ME that actually WERE dumbed down is being disingenuous, at best. It was made to include more people. Anyone using Nintendo buzz words in their press releases is dumbing down their product, to some extent.

EDIT: I agree with sephfire that games being unnecessarily hard are a big barrier to new gamers, and that we, as veteran gamers, are kind of biased when it comes to game difficulty. That being said, NO ONE can argue that the first ME was hard. At all. It was a cakewalk; you were practically tripping over awesome guns, armors, and equips, and sneezing produced cash money in that game.

Now... if you guys don't mind, I'm going to go do Tali's loyalty mission.

[Arcana]

With respect to MMORPGs, and perhaps RPGs in general there's a paradigm of "Eastern-style" vs. "Western-style", mostly referring to the developer.

Blizzard is a Western-style developer. They make the game accessible and easy. NCSoft is an Eastern-style developer. They make the game hard and that's because their players expect it to be hard.

Since the "dumbing-down" of games (or streamlining, whatever), a lot of Western players simply can't play Eastern games anymore because they're "too hard". Or, maybe they were never that fun to begin with and it just took the release of a few other games for people to realise that.

[Jam Stunna]

With reference to the comparison between ME and Bioshock, I never played ME, but one of the reasons I didn't finish Bioshock was the clumsy interface. I'm sure that if I'd put more time into it, I would have gotten the whole switching between plasmids and guns system.

But that's exactly the point- my current life doesn't allow me the time to learn what may be an incredibly rewarding but awfully complex system. This also drove me away from the Madden franchise for years. It simply became too complicated, and anyone who had the time to learn all of the pre-play control options would destroy me when I played them.

The most fun I've had in games recently has been NSMB Wii and Mario Kart Wii, and those are pretty much the epitome of simplicity. I still enjoy deep and complex games as much as the pick-up-and-play stuff (I'm very big into fighting games, and those aren't known for accessibility), but I agree with the article and appreciate games that don't demand hours of my time to understand its mechanics.

[The Vagrance]

Playing through ME1 again now I have this to say: I'm so fucking happy they made the choices they did about ME2. I'm not saying there shouldn't be super deep RPG battle systems but that's what Dragon Age was for, and if you're looking for that type of game don't complain that ME2 doesn't fit your needs. For whatever reason a portion of the gaming community feels the need to complain when certain fundamental features don't fit their specific wants or needs, to which I have to say, "Play a different game."

The video game industry is getting huge and its only going to keep growing, but to do so there are going to need to be more easily accessible video games because a lot of people don't want to have to spend hours figuring out the game mechanics or grinding to get a piece of gear. If this trend is good or bad for the gaming industry depends on which side of the fence you fall on but people need to get over some franchises (particularly border-line mainstream ones as Final Fantasy or Mass Effect) taking a more streamlined approach to their games, because at the very least this causes developers to pay more attention to detail and take out features that ultimately have no place in their game.

[JackKieser]

With reference to the comparison between ME and Bioshock, I never played ME, but one of the reasons I didn't finish Bioshock was the clumsy interface. I'm sure that if I'd put more time into it, I would have gotten the whole switching between plasmids and guns system.

And that's what turned some people off to ME: the retarded inventory interface. The actual mechanics of battle weren't obtuse at all, and equip management (outside of the interface) was pretty simple for an American RPG; you had 3 main defensive stats, and you augmented those with strategic upgrades like healing or increased shields (the only two I ever used, lol).

Weapons were even easier. You had your fire rate, damage, and cooldown, and you could augment those, or give your weapons "elemental" damage types with subequips.

Again, if the inventory system wasn't so pants-on-head retarded, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as bad as most ARPGs.

But that's exactly the point- my current life doesn't allow me the time to learn what may be an incredibly rewarding but awfully complex system. This also drove me away from the Madden franchise for years. It simply became too complicated, and anyone who had the time to learn all of the pre-play control options would destroy me when I played them.

That's where "streamlining" comes in. There are plenty of ways to make a game experience more accessable without actually removing game mechanics. Changing the controls or the interface is the best way in most instances. When a battle system, for example, is actually designed in a bad way or an overly complicated way, that's when you need to dumb things down. Take Oblivion. That game had a separate stat for everything (including breathing, thinking, and taking a piss), and sometimes they affected each other! It was way too much, and so the actual design of the game mechanics needed simplification; a minor interface change couldn't fix those problems.

Not every game needs that, though, and not every genre is receptive to those changes. Like I already said, RPGs (which I'm thinking is a true misnomer the more and more I think about it) benefit and depend on statistics-based gameplay. Reduce the amount of stats to work with too much or oversimplify the way they work and interact with each other, and you've diluted the game experience. One of the reasons that ME1 was so good at blending RPG and shooter mechanics is because it knew it was a RPG first. Tactically, it was more engaging to have shielding be separate from health and have unlimited shots, but a cooldown meter. Now, ME2's shooter game is just like every other shooter out there (techs / biotics notwithstanding): you shoot until you run out of ammo, and you regen health for absolutely no reason (seriously, the ammo/regen mechanics don't even fit within the confines of the series previous canon).

The most fun I've had in games recently has been NSMB Wii and Mario Kart Wii, and those are pretty much the epitome of simplicity. I still enjoy deep and complex games as much as the pick-up-and-play stuff (I'm very big into fighting games, and those aren't known for accessibility), but I agree with the article and appreciate games that don't demand hours of my time to understand its mechanics.

But, part of that is because platformers and kart racers benefit from simple design. That's part of the definition of what a "platformer" or "racer" is. Part of what an "RPG" is makes it more complex than other genres, by its very nature. For that reason, I don't think Heavy Rain, for instance, is an RPG at all. It's an interactive story. I think that game made a genre all its own and has no place being associated with traditional RPG gaming.

Look, if you don't like sports, don't play football; don't expect football to change into a game you want to play. Same here. RPGs are a defined, distinguished genre, and part of that is more complex, time consuming gaming. If you don't like it, then find other games, don't expect the whole of RPG-dom to change to fit your needs, because there are other people who need them to stay the way they are now. (I'm not addressing you specifically, btw).

EDIT@The Vagrance: Try this (thought experiment; I know you can't actually do this):

1 ) Imagine ME1

2 ) Reduce the cooldown of EVERY SKILL by 75%

3 ) Add in the new cover system

4 ) Add in a better inventory system that lets you organize items, and doesn't make you scroll through them one by one

5 ) ???

6 ) Profit!

Seriously, you just said that for the people who already liked ME1, now they should just switch to Dragon Age, because ME isn't for them anymore. Really?

[zircon]

I have to say that *overall* I agree with the original article. I hate some of these carryovers from old games that 'tax' you for no reason. Demon's Souls is a perfect example of how you can have a game with extreme difficulty (rivaling many NES games) and deep customization (rivaling many modern RPGs), but also remain highly streamlined and accessible. ME1 somehow managed to mess everything up, in my opinion. The combat was tedious and boring. The rigid class structure meant I couldn't try out different ways of playing with starting a new game entirely. The stat/inventory management was a giant pain but ultimately didn't even change the way combat played out, which for me was just basic shoot - hide - shoot - hide or occasionally "rush with shotgun." No REAL depth at all. I couldn't get through more than 4 or 5 hours of it.

Before you say I'm not a hardcore gamer or whatever, again let me remind you I'm a huge fan of Demon's Souls. I've played and/or beaten most 'hardcore'/old-school RPGs like FFT, Disgaea 1 & 2, Phantom Brave, Etrian Odyssey etc., games with a huge focus on stat management. I just think ME1 messed it up. Unfortunately, it sounds like ME2 managed to mess it up even more.

[Gario]

Meh, I think the article pointed out one thing very clearly - there's no satisfying everyone. Sure, the people who love the new streamlined games have a good point in that these new games should be open to new players, trim the fat, etc. However, those that complain that new games aren't 'HARDCORE' also have a point in that if a game isn't difficult, it often isn't very fun, either... for them.

Really, VG companies have quite the dilemma, and there's nothing they can do about it. Do you make a game more accessible, thus alienating a loyal audience, or do you continue to make the games difficult and complex, thus alienating a new audience? I think they're making the right choice, streamlining games and such, because let's face it - if you want a hard game, go set up your good ol' NES and run through Contra again. Hardcore gamers already have a vast library of games at their disposal, so they suffer less when games are 'streamlined' or 'dumbed-down'.

I'm sure there are some games that satisfy both parties, in some sense, but alas, they are few and far between.

[The Vagrance]

EDIT@The Vagrance: Try this (thought experiment; I know you can't actually do this):

1 ) Imagine ME1

2 ) Reduce the cooldown of EVERY SKILL by 75%

3 ) Add in the new cover system

4 ) Add in a better inventory system that lets you organize items, and doesn't make you scroll through them one by one

5 ) ???

6 ) Profit!

Seriously, you just said that for the people who already liked ME1, now they should just switch to Dragon Age, because ME isn't for them anymore. Really?

It would still have giant, unnecessary, empty environments with loading screens (elevators) every other minute. It would still have a slightly broken targeting system. It would still have annoying AI. It would still have inferior sidequests (granted a debatable issue), character development, and voice acting. It would still have unnecessary gear and items that serve little purpose other than to complicate things. And these are just problems I'm thinking of off of the top of my head.

A lot of the RPG elements present in ME1 felt like they were there because they had to be, and to an extent they still are, but they're hidden because their inclusion was otherwise unnecessary and shallow compared to other RPG experiences. The point is to make a more cohesive product overall, and ME2 nails that point.

And I'm not saying people who liked ME1 should play Dragon Age, but what I am saying is having two (possibly three with the arrival of The Old Republic) parallel RPG franchises with a similar battle system by the same company would get slightly redundant even if they're set in completely different worlds. It feels like the changes made were to differentiate the Mass Effect series that much more from the other franchises that Bioware has/plans to have.

[JackKieser]

Meh, I think the article pointed out one thing very clearly - there's no satisfying everyone. Sure, the people who love the new streamlined games have a good point in that these new games should be open to new players, trim the fat, etc. However, those that complain that new games aren't 'HARDCORE' also have a point in that if a game isn't difficult, it often isn't very fun, either... for them.

Really, VG companies have quite the dilemma, and there's nothing they can do about it. Do you make a game more accessible, thus alienating a loyal audience, or do you continue to make the games difficult and complex, thus alienating a new audience? I think they're making the right choice, streamlining games and such, because let's face it - if you want a hard game, go set up your good ol' NES and run through Contra again. Hardcore gamers already have a vast library of games at their disposal, so they suffer less when games are 'streamlined' or 'dumbed-down'.

I'm sure there are some games that satisfy both parties, in some sense, but alas, they are few and far between.

You make it sound like it's binary: either a game is accessable, or it's hard. That's not the case at all! Look at SSB:Melee; anyone can pick up and play that game, but the competitive community also has a metagame where competing is a very difficult thing to do. Pokemon is a very easy game for people to pick up and play, but to battle in a competitive setting, you need to juggle all sorts of stats, do a whole bunch of math, plan like crazy, and have a ton of patience.

Super Mario World was pretty simple for just anyone to play, but just anyone wasn't going to complete Star Road.

A well-designed game doesn't fit into the paradigm of "either it's accessible or it's hard". You can have depth and ease of interface in one package.

It would still have giant, unnecessary, empty environments...

I agree with you there, but that's more a level design issue than an accessibility issue; if they spent more time making more things to do on planets and lowered the number of land-able planets to compensate... you'd have no actual mechanical change, but better environments.

...with loading screens (elevators) every other minute.

...which I loved. It didn't remind me I was playing a game, because they didn't take me out of the game and because the environments felt like one connected area, plus I got to see little snippets of character development that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to see otherwise. Hell, I got a mission from an elevator ride. If they spent more time making more lines for characters to say in them, it would have been fine... which is also a content change, NOT a mechanics change. Also, time the loading elevators in ME1 and compare to the loading screens in ME2; almost the same.

It would still have a slightly broken targeting system.

Never had a problem with it. Learn2aim, maybe?

It would still have annoying AI.

Do you mean your AI buddies? Maybe I just got lucky, because they never game me problems. I do like ME2's command system more, though.

It would still have inferior sidequests (granted a debatable issue)...

...and, a content issue, again...

...character development...

In certain ways. I think that it had the same development, but worse cut scene scripting, personally.

...and voice acting.

Again, more content. Irrelevant when discussing game mechanics design.

It would still have unnecessary gear and items that serve little purpose other than to complicate things.

And, you know, make your character play differently. 8 playthroughs with different classes/equips, and I still don't use 100% the same strategies on each one.

And these are just problems I'm thinking of off of the top of my head.

It sounds like you're trying to find problems. And like I said, many of those are unrelated to actual mechanical design, which is what the article was about.

[JackKieser]

Whoops, double post. Sorry about that.

[Gario]

I know, false dichotomy. It often is the case, though (SSBM is the perfect example of an exception). Until VG companies learn how to make games easy to learn & accessible, yet challenging & complex under the surface we're going to see many games that fall under that dichotomy, unfortunately.

[The Vagrance]

...which I loved. It didn't remind me I was playing a game, because they didn't take me out of the game and because the environments felt like one connected area, plus I got to see little snippets of character development that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to see otherwise. Hell, I got a mission from an elevator ride. If they spent more time making more lines for characters to say in them, it would have been fine... which is also a content change, NOT a mechanics change. Also, time the loading elevators in ME1 and compare to the loading screens in ME2; almost the same.

I don't mind the idea of elevators but having loads of different areas all connected by them was annoying, especially compared to ME2 where there are fewer loading screens in the world as a whole (and the little dialog sequences were still there in the forms of news briefings on the wall).

Do you mean your AI buddies? Maybe I just got lucky, because they never game me problems. I do like ME2's command system more, though.

This isn't something I noticed the first time but playing through again and its really an issue. Allies will often stand right in the middle of fire, will go for cover where you are already in cover, or just plain get in your way. And a lot of enemies only seem to have two strategies: Hide in a corner until forced out or kamikaze.

And, you know, make your character play differently. 8 playthroughs with different classes/equips, and I still don't use 100% the same strategies on each one.

Except there is almost always a clear cut better piece of armor or weaponry at a certain rank than all of the others, which makes the mass arsenal before you seem kind of useless.

It sounds like you're trying to find problems. And like I said, many of those are unrelated to actual mechanical design, which is what the article was about.

I'm not trying to find problems, but they're much more apparent after playing through ME2. And again, those are just problems specific to your description of a better ME game. Streamlining isn't just one aspect, but an entire mindset you have to get into. You can't cut out aspects of one section of a game and then leave another section untouched.

[Vivi22]

And, you know, make your character play differently. 8 playthroughs with different classes/equips, and I still don't use 100% the same strategies on each one.

You might have played differently on eight playthroughs, but I guarentee you had plenty of weapons and items in each of them that you wouldn't have used even with a different character build. A lot of the weapons you get just plain suck or are duplicates of others and thanks to the crappy inventory system are a bigger pain to get rid of than to just ignore.

1 ) Imagine ME1

2 ) Reduce the cooldown of EVERY SKILL by 75%

3 ) Add in the new cover system

4 ) Add in a better inventory system that lets you organize items, and doesn't make you scroll through them one by one

5 ) ???

6 ) Profit!

Toss in a skill interface in combat that's quicker and easier to use mid battle and you'd be closer to making ME1 playable. It'd still suffer from too many other problems that ME2 seems to have dealt with to make it worth it though as far as I'm concerned.

Even if you do feel that the stat management is dumbed down and that it's somehow less of an RPG because of it there's no denying that they got rid of most of the things that slowed down the experience and let you get right into the action and enjoy the actual game without being pulled out every few minutes with tasks that most people do think are mundane.

And I have to disagree with you in your thinking that RPG's even need in depth control over stat development. Some like Oblivion have it and thrive on it because that's what their fan base wants. Most RPG's don't feature any great amount of stat development or control though. Even ME1 was pretty basic in it's implementation, and the most customization it really had was choosing which abilities you wanted to pursue, or which of a handful of different weapon upgrades you'd use, with most options being pretty useless. I see no problem with streamlining this stuff, or even ditching it entirely in games that already had a pretty basic core system that was complicated by an over abundance of pointless options.

[JackKieser]

I don't mind the idea of elevators but having loads of different areas all connected by them was annoying, especially compared to ME2 where there are fewer loading screens in the world as a whole (and the little dialog sequences were still there in the forms of news briefings on the wall).

News sequences are on the wall, but they don't cause your teammates to talk to each other. That's what I liked more than anything. Not to mention, I'd trade back more loading elevators if it meant I could go to the wards I've already been to in the first game. ...that kind of upset me.

This isn't something I noticed the first time but playing through again and its really an issue. Allies will often stand right in the middle of fire, will go for cover where you are already in cover, or just plain get in your way. And a lot of enemies only seem to have two strategies: Hide in a corner until forced out or kamikaze.

I get what you're saying with enemy AI, but I've never had my AI squadmates do anything that would screw me that badly; hell, Mordin's been more of a dumbass in ME2 than Ashley ever was in ME1. Seriously, man: if you're shields are low, stop shooting.

Except there is almost always a clear cut better piece of armor or weaponry at a certain rank than all of the others, which makes the mass arsenal before you seem kind of useless.

So the game threw a bunch of stuff at you at all times. That's still content. Lower the drop rate, don't eliminate it entirely. It's really stupid that there are now only 25 fixed guns in the game.

I'm not trying to find problems, but they're much more apparent after playing through ME2. And again, those are just problems specific to your description of a better ME game. Streamlining isn't just one aspect, but an entire mindset you have to get into. You can't cut out aspects of one section of a game and then leave another section untouched.

I never said to cut out/edit some and not touch another. I just think excising entire portions of the game and not replacing them with anything worthwhile diluted the experience for me. I am definitely enjoying ME2, but I haven't enjoyed the combat in ME2 anywhere near as much as I did in ME1. Ever. Optimization is one thing. Bioware did not optimize.

EDIT:

You might have played differently on eight playthroughs, but I guarentee you had plenty of weapons and items in each of them that you wouldn't have used even with a different character build. A lot of the weapons you get just plain suck or are duplicates of others and thanks to the crappy inventory system are a bigger pain to get rid of than to just ignore.

I already talked about that in this post, but seriously: drop rate issue =/= mechanics issue. That's content. Lower the drop rate. Not to mention, I already said they could have changed the inventory interface instead of removing it completely.

Toss in a skill interface in combat that's quicker and easier to use mid battle and you'd be closer to making ME1 playable. It'd still suffer from too many other problems that ME2 seems to have dealt with to make it worth it though as far as I'm concerned.

Easier to use? Really? All they did was add two more quick-use buttons. It's not that big of a change. Honestly, if they used that mindset on all the other stuff they took out, it'd have been a much deeper experience overall.

Even if you do feel that the stat management is dumbed down and that it's somehow less of an RPG because of it there's no denying that they got rid of most of the things that slowed down the experience and let you get right into the action and enjoy the actual game without being pulled out every few minutes with tasks that most people do think are mundane.

Yeah, there is plenty to deny, because those things that "slowed down" the game were what RPG purists like. You don't play an RPG for fast-paced combat: you play for a slower, more cerebral experience. You want fast-paced, play MW2.

And I have to disagree with you in your thinking that RPG's even need in depth control over stat development. Some like Oblivion have it and thrive on it because that's what their fan base wants. Most RPG's don't feature any great amount of stat development or control though. Even ME1 was pretty basic in it's implementation, and the most customization it really had was choosing which abilities you wanted to pursue, or which of a handful of different weapon upgrades you'd use, with most options being pretty useless. I see no problem with streamlining this stuff, or even ditching it entirely in games that already had a pretty basic core system that was complicated by an over abundance of pointless options.

ME1 had nothing near what any Bethesda game has ever had. Like I said, reduce the skill level cap to 10, maybe take out a skill or two, and they 'd have been fine. Adding the loyalty skills and tactical shift would have been icing on the cake. Instead of streamlining it, they oversimplified it. I've played Infiltrator and Adept so far, and only Adept made me make any actual skill choices (but that's because biotics are so OP); Infiltrator's Cloak is it's class-specific, and it's mostly useless because you can't regen while cloaked.

No, ME2 is a good game, but they could have handled the transition so much more gracefully if they took chances instead of pandering so much to people that don't even like RPGs for what they are; instead, they just took out whatever people complained about.

Mako control problems? Just take it out!

Inventory issues? Just take it out!

Actual character customization too overwhelming? Just take it out!

That's not how you evolve a franchise unless you're going for the RE4 overhaul method.

[Jam Stunna]

But, part of that is because platformers and kart racers benefit from simple design. That's part of the definition of what a "platformer" or "racer" is. Part of what an "RPG" is makes it more complex than other genres, by its very nature. For that reason, I don't think Heavy Rain, for instance, is an RPG at all. It's an interactive story. I think that game made a genre all its own and has no place being associated with traditional RPG gaming.

I don't think this is true. The Mario RPG series has shown pretty well that an RPG does not have to be significantly more complicated than a platformer to be a quality RPG.

[JackKieser]

I don't think this is true. The Mario RPG series has shown pretty well that an RPG does not have to be significantly more complicated than a platformer to be a quality RPG.

Well, that's an interesting instance. SMRPG was one of the old-style RPGs where customization was irrelevant to game design; mechanically, old-style JRPGs were very simple/easy, and the skill came in strategy/execution and dedication (leveling up). SMRPG was no different because the game practically handed you all of your better equipment and dealt with stats on its own (level-up bonuses notwithstanding).

Paper Mario was much the same; no true equips, auto stat management, focus on strategy... but they added badges. A little more character depth.

Thousand-Year Door really upped the ante with customization, though, by updating the badge system and how badges interact with one another. Again, no real equips, auto stat management, focus on strategy/leveling... only now once you reach level 50 or so, you could go buy a set of badges that let you do 70 damage per hit, lol. Seriously... you can do some broken stuff in that game.

So, even old-style JRPG mechanics have had depth increase over time as a direct result of adding in more character customization mechanics.

[The Vagrance]

News sequences are on the wall, but they don't cause your teammates to talk to each other. That's what I liked more than anything. Not to mention, I'd trade back more loading elevators if it meant I could go to the wards I've already been to in the first game. ...that kind of upset me.

I was initially upset about that too, until I went through the Wards again in the first game, and honestly there's not a lot down there. A few sidequests are centred there and it did have a nice atmosphere, but the developers obviously felt that that area didn't have a purpose in the second game and might even seem a little bit redundant considering Omega (IIRC, I'm more familiar with ME1 planets than ME2 ones right now) was basically the Wards pt. 2. As for the characters talking to each other; don't they talk to each other as you walk around anyway? I may be thinking of Dragon Age because I know that game does it but I'm almost positive ME2 does it as well. Iono, ultimately its not the most vital thing in the world to me because any given two characters only have like, 4 or 5 lines they can talk about in the elevators anyway.

I get what you're saying with enemy AI, but I've never had my AI squadmates do anything that would screw me that badly; hell, Mordin's been more of a dumbass in ME2 than Ashley ever was in ME1. Seriously, man: if you're shields are low, stop shooting.

Play through ME1 again. I'm not saying ME2's AI is flawless but its certainly smarter than the AI in ME1.

So the game threw a bunch of stuff at you at all times. That's still content. Lower the drop rate, don't eliminate it entirely. It's really stupid that there are now only 25 fixed guns in the game.

How is that stupid? Each differing gun of a weapon type (different pistols, shotguns, etc.) has a very clear difference, more so than ones I discovered in the original. Granted the shotguns somehow got more useless but having clear, differing weapons is a good thing and still gives people the option of a different strategy. You're complaining about only 25 distinct, fairly equal weapons? That's a lot of choice and way better than 100 or so slightly differing weapons (excluding the different levels of them, which again, is unnecessary).

I never said to cut out/edit some and not touch another. I just think excising entire portions of the game and not replacing them with anything worthwhile diluted the experience for me. I am definitely enjoying ME2, but I haven't enjoyed the combat in ME2 anywhere near as much as I did in ME1. Ever. Optimization is one thing. Bioware did not optimize.

That's kinda the whole point though of (I'm so sick of this word already) streamlining the game though; you take stuff out that just isn't working right. It sucks that you're not enjoying it as much and it would be irrational to think everyone would like the changes, but I'll argue that they were definitely smart changes and a move in the right direction. Not only that, but the trend of streamlining in games as a whole is a good one, simply because a fair number of games were becoming increasingly inundated with various features that weren't needed.

I'm not against complexity at all, but not all game franchises need to have a severe amount of depth to them, and Mass Effect is one of those franchises. There's a quote about design that applies to games as well: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoinè De Saint-Exupéry.