10 ms·

The quest for a Wiki-less game

48 points by azeemba 2y ago

JohnFen 2y ago
> The reasoning for this is that the player experience is greatly hindered by searching up answers to problems found in a game. This is an interesting statement to me, and I think the truth of it is debatable. It's certainly true if you're only looking at a specific sort of player experience, but there are other sorts of experiences some people want which is greatly enhanced by the use of reference material. Why would a game designer want to reduce the appeal of their game to those sorts of players? Players who want the "pure" game experience can simply not look things up on the wiki. Surely, in the end, game designers want to make games that are fun and engaging, so if the use of a wiki makes a game more fun and engaging to some, why would a game designer object to that?
- musicale 2y ago
  It really depends on the player and the game. I could imagine being disappointed by a player who uses a game guide to speed through the shortest path in a game and then complains that the game is too short (or that the puzzles are too easy.) Or by MMO players who spend 200 hours completing quests in a new expansion and then complain that there wasn't enough new content.
  - musicale 2y ago
    Though I could imagine huge/dynamic/roguelike/AI games that get bigger and bigger the more people play them. So all of that time could be exploring/creating new game areas or storylines that didn't exist until you started exploring, something that regularly occurs in tabletop RPGs. The idea of a dungeon, planet, or galaxy so vast that it would take millions of players years to explore it fully is interesting as well. In that case different instances of the game could be extremely different, depending on where the players decided to go.
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Reminds me of No Man's Sky. Which has multiple huge galaxies mostly unexplored. It is just that procedural generation is not yet at point where these generated worlds are actually interesting or different enough. You end up seeing same elements and things over and over again. I think big challenge now is how to get AI or system to generate good and novel feeling content. Not just rehashing same elements placed slightly different with some sliders moved around.
      - musicale 2y ago
        That is really exciting; I wonder if there is some really interesting world that just hasn't been generated/discovered yet? Or that will be in an upcoming/more advanced version of this sort of game?
  - stavros 2y ago
    > I could imagine being disappointed by a player who uses a game guide to speed through the shortest path in a game and then complains that the game is too short (or that the puzzles are too easy.) Sure, but I doubt this straw man actually exists.
    - izacus 2y ago
      If you read the game reviews and message boards you will see a lot of people do just that and then complain very loudly.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- fragmede 2y ago
  > Players who want the "pure" game experience can simply not look things up on the wiki. Because people don't have the self control not to do that and want to get spoonfed the answer, even if not cheating would be more satisfying for them.
  - izacus 2y ago
    "Given the choice, players will optimize all the fun out of their game." - this is a quote attributed to Sid Meier and it's very true. And reading Wikis is pretty much one of things that really fits this.
    - yreg 2y ago
      At the same time he probably didn't think about wikis in that regard since he included an in-depth Civilopedia in the Civilization games before wikis were a thing.
- pm215 2y ago
  On the other hand I think there are definitely situations and play styles where the player resorting to a wiki is a failure of game design. I mostly don't use wikis, but if I get into a situation where I don't feel like I'm making progress or have any idea what to do ("how do I even damage this boss at all?"; "I feel like I spent the last half hour wandering over the map and I have no clue where I need to go next"; that kind of thing), then I'm likely to look up the answer. And once I've found a walkthrough or wiki I'm probably going to keep using it even when the next part is less annoying. I think in that kind of case both the player and the designer are likely to feel it would have been a better game if that resort to the wiki was avoidable. There are also situations where I will happily look up a walkthrough because I've had enough "puzzle solving" fun and just want the "see the last bits of content" fun before I put the game down. I did the tail end of Tunic and Fez that way. This kind of thing I don't think is a game design failure -- it's just different players having different preferences for how much and how complicated they like riddle solving and secret finding gameplay.
- Timshel 2y ago
  Yeah this statement absolutely does not apply to me and I like that one of the answer point that the use of a wiki might be a failure from the game. Good example for this is the Witcher 3 ending. One of the ending which I would consider the most favorable is almost an easter egg and rely on specific answer in barely related dialogs. Easter egg are nice but don’t put the ending I’m most interested in behind some "choice" I made ...
  - haunter 2y ago
    >Easter egg are nice but don’t put the ending I’m most interested in behind some "choice" I made ... Never play a Nier game lol
    - lmm 2y ago
      In Nier it's a lot less annoying because the game is specifically about that and makes it clear that it's about that.
- kruczek 2y ago
  > Players who want the "pure" game experience can simply not look things up on the wiki. Unfortunately it's not so simple, if you need wiki to search for the most basic information, because they game doesn't provide it. It's what the author actually describes as "terraria problem" and I fully agree with that sentiment: in Terraria you can craft things, but the game doesn't show you what you can craft, unless you are near the correct crafting station AND have sufficient resources on yourself to craft it. So in order to play without wiki you'd need to: 1. stuff your inventory with all possible resources you'd otherwise store in various chests 2. go to each of your crafting stations Needless to say, it is extremely tedious and still you might not see that some item can be crafted at a given station, because for example you only have 99 pieces of some resource and that item needs 100 pieces of that resource. So I'd say it's fine for some cryptic or more advanced mechanisms to be covered on wiki. But when I need to go to wiki simply to get a list of craftable items, then there's something seriously wrong with the UI design in the game.
NotGMan 2y ago
Minecraft is a good counterexample to what the author wants. People look up recipes all the time on wiki and yet Minecraft is the #1 best selling game, so obviously it isn't an issue in the real world.
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  There is a fragile relation there, between invested work and thus user investment and willingness to put in work. The UI can loose the "self-learn" mode, as soon, as the user has invested and is invested in the game behind it. Before that - you are fishing without bait and got no leverage.
- yreg 2y ago
  Minecraft is interesting in this regard since for the longest time there was no in-game recipe guide. It would be absolutely unreasonable to expect the players to figure out the crafting recipes on their own (perhaps beyond a few basic ones). So of course everyone used a wiki from the very start. I wonder if Notch ever spoke about this and what were his thoughts. Did he design the game already with a wiki in mind? It made it problematic for new players to play offline, so there are some downsides.
- cybrexalpha 2y ago
  Minecraft is still pretty opaque. It's gotten a lot better with the recipe book and advancement list giving some guides. But if you'd never played or interacted with Minecraft before and were dropped into the game I'm not sure you'd ever understand how to do certain things without outside help - be that the wiki or watching another player. Are the ruined portals dotted around enough to make you realise that you can craft a nether portal? How would you figure out how to make eyes of ender? Even if you made one would you understand what it does? Once you found a stronghold it's not unreasonable that you'd figure out how to open the portal, and once in the end the fight with the dragon should be pretty obvious (even if it takes you a while to figure out an effective strategy). But what then, would you find the end gateway and see the outlying end islands? Would you wander around enough to find a city and a ship? Would you understand what Elytra do, or what Shulker boxes do? Both of those elements (Elytra and Shulker Boxes) are so fundamental to how the game is actually played that it's a different game without them.
seanhunter 2y ago
Really disagree with the hypothesis the author has, and especially don't think that the player experience is hindered (at all) by searching for things in an external wiki. Most of the games I really like (Factorio, Dwarf Fortress, Subnautica, Valheim, Satisfactory, recently Shapez2 as examples) I enjoy partly because of the active community (and wikis are obviously part of that). I love seeing solutions that other people have found, and a big part of my enjoyment comes from comparing my own solutions with those from others in the community. In all of those examples I'm figuring things out myself and using a wiki and sometimes other community tools such as calculators etc. I would be really amazed if this person makes a good game when their focus is make players do A rather than B instead of "how do I make this game as much fun to play as possible". It's also likely that the gameplay systems are really shallow if they feel they would be harmed by people searching for information in a wiki.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Blame the dev all you want, something is lost by players cheating and just looking up the answer online.
  - codetrotter 2y ago
    I’ve done both. I cheated my way through a single player game following a walkthrough all the way from start to finish. Only at the end did I realize that this took away a lot of the fun from the game. But I’ve also used a wiki to find crafting recipes for Minecraft back when I started playing. Looking up crafting recipes helped me find out what things I could craft. And it didn’t remove any of the joy I got out of playing Minecraft at all. And then there are other cases where I’ve looked at walkthroughs again but learning from my mistake I make a point of only looking when I’m really really stuck, and to only read as little as possible to get unstuck. So my opinion is yes it’s perfectly possible to ruin a good game for yourself by looking up info online. But if you learn from doing that to yourself you’ll probably learn to only use it when you really need it. And then the game remains fun to play.
  - seanhunter 2y ago
    How is that cheating in a single-player game? What does cheating even mean in a single-player game. Seriously. The only rule in a single player game is you should do whatever seems like it would be fun for you[1]. For some people the fun comes in working things out, for others the fun comes from "making progress" (whatever that means in the game). For me personally it depends very much on the situation. It's not generally fun if you're just stuck banging your head against a wall so I totally get people looking up answers to things to get unstuck. From my perspective that's really fine. There have certainly been games (Subnautica is the most obvious example for me personally) where the sense of wonder and exploration was really a huge part of the experience for me so I didn't want to search external sources and spoiler it - I wanted to experience it all for myself, but even there if someone just wanted to have a map and know everything that was going to happen I would say that's fine let them do whatever they want to do. The dev should be focussing 100% on making the game fun. That's it. Focussing on preventing your players from doing something they want to do seems like a step back to the days where games had a single way to move forward and you had to do things exactly that way. That's definitely not a good way to design a fun game. [1] Multiplayer games are more complex of course because your actions affect other people so there is for sure cheating and other types of behaviour that I would personally consider unethical.
Timshel 2y ago
Not what the original author wanted but with game like Cyberpunk I wish the wiki would be IG :).
have_faith 2y ago
Does anyone remember the Horadric Cube from Diablo 2? Was there any mechanism in the game to discover all of the combinations? (I don’t think so). It was easy to work out a couple basic combos with gems and then you basically needed to look up the rest, which I always thought was a shame. Seems like it wouldn’t have been hard to make them all discoverable in-game without just guessing.
- Fornax96 2y ago
  I just used the cube as a backpack for extra inventory space, haha
  - have_faith 2y ago
    I think I was too scared of losing it so kept it in the stash the whole time. (is it even possible to lose it?)
    - Fornax96 2y ago
      Not sure, it's been a long time since I played. But I don't think you could completely lose it.
troupo 2y ago
The question feels wrong because it's out of place. First you have to ask "what game am I building, and for whom?". Games with multiple levels of puzzles and meta gameplay wouldn't exist without an active community and wikis, and they are great partly because of that. Think Noita, Animal Well or even Binding of Isaac. On the other hand, you don't need a wiki to play and enjoy Ori and the Blind Forest
rspoerri 2y ago
The problem is that two different systems collide (in the example of Terraria). Having an open world game and a learning curve for the things the user needs to understand to progress. Looking up informations in a wiki most often happens when the game gets boring or overly complex for the player to have fun (check Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory on that). Games that do that well, such as Zelda (which does this very well) introduce new mechanics and scenarios in an very iterative way. By having a linear structure. Other games use AI to control the gameplay flow. A linear level structure could look like this: A & B are different types of enemies | A (new enemy) | A,A (more complex situation) | B (new enemy) | B,B (more complex situation) | A,B (new combination) | A,A,B,B (complex new combination) | ... This method works with lots of systems, such as level design elements, enemies or construction of ingame elements. The problem is that procedural content generation and open worlds make it hard for the game designer to introduce the content to the player in this order. interesting videos on this topic: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMggqenxuZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMggqenxuZc (Half-Life 2's Invisible Tutorial) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnt5zxb8W0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnt5zxb8W0Y (Director AI for Balancing In-Game Experiences) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GV814cWiAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GV814cWiAw (Can we Improve Tutorials for Complex Games?)
- haunter 2y ago
  >introduce new mechanics and scenarios in an very iterative way. By having a linear structure. A lot of games are also ruined by this handhelding style of design where 20 hours in you are still seeing tutorials
  - rspoerri 2y ago
    There is a balance between making a game to difficult and boring. You were likely talking a moment when the game got boring or repetitive, because you already understood the mechanics, when you encountered another gameplay tutorial explaining it. Also games might target new players, while you might have encountered similar game mechanics before. But even then a good tutorial will make it fun, although it may be easy to solve. It's also helps to make it solvable fast if you already know the mechanics. But still, if you add a new game mechanics 20 into a game, it is good practice to add a situation where you can learn to handle it. A good example is the gravity gun in half life, or specific features of it that only get available in the endgame.
PrivateButts 2y ago
For me, I run to wikis most often to get numbers. It's frustrating how far some games go to hide exactly how much faster an upgrade will make you, or what the fuck a status effect means. Dead by Daylight had this problem for a long time until they finally put numbers in perk descriptions. Risk of Rain 2 half implemented a good solution- tooltip style descriptions when you hover over items or terms, but it's not applied universally or more confusingly, not on the status effect icons that appear in a run.
PeterStuer 2y ago
Water runs downhill. Players will max out convenience. The only way is to make the ingame info easier to access, more convenient and complete than any 3rd party. E.g to beat a youtube video that shows you how to complete a quest, you can have a ghost of your character frontrunning the player and doing exactly what needs to be done. Most gamedesigners abhore even the thought of adding such a thing as they want players to explore and discover. And some will, but the majority that pay your bills will just use youtube or wikis or addons to just tell them what to do.
- b112 2y ago
  And some will, but the majority that pay your bills will just use youtube or wikis or addons to just tell them what to do. This cannot be true. It can't. If it is, I hope for us all. What's the point of it then?! Why do they even play? What joy is derived? I think I'll create an immersive headset where people have an overlay of someone vacuuming. Maybe then at least the world will be clean, while people just follow along on youtube demos. I guess to complete it, I'll give a reward sound at each room, with bonus points for completeness and catching every crumb in the couch cushions. A little casino like 'ding', and a drop of 'reward bucks', which go onto a card you can use to buy real world things, like food. My god, what have we all come to. I guess this is where Idiocracy lands in our lap. Put on helmet, follow a GPT walk through on how to perform brain surgery, get reward points to buy food and housing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcYbYhjdUb4&t=84s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcYbYhjdUb4&t=84s
cloogshicer 2y ago
The game that does this best is Outer Wilds. All the information in this game is discoverable on your own, driven by curiosity.
- yreg 2y ago
  And I think the game is so captivating that very few Outer Wilds players would let themselves be spoiled by reading the wiki unless they get absolutely stuck or after they complete the game.
  - Kiro 2y ago
    I didn't like it and ended up watching a playthrough on YouTube instead.
  - chii 2y ago
    you might want the wiki to get every single possible ending.
remoquete 2y ago
Video games used to have user manuals. Some were great and memorable! https://passo.uno/video-game-manuals-docs/ https://passo.uno/video-game-manuals-docs/
drw85 2y ago
I also think this signals a change in how games are played these days. There are many players that don't want to be challenged or explore, they want to complete tasks and get rewards. Some of them don't really care that much about the actual gameplay, as long as there is a quick way to complete sets of tasks and get their rewards. Some of my friends are like this, they blast through games without looking at anything but the tasks and rewards and they hate having to figure things out, explore, discover and other road blocks to their "task list". They move at break neck speed too, like their lives depend on it. It's really hard to keep up, becasue they never stop at look at anything, but just rush to the next marker to finish the next task. I had to actually stop playing certain types of games with them, because it would completely ruin the game for me. I like exploring and discovering and figuring things out. If everything has an easy hint, marker, or otherwise shortcut that takes that away or discourages it, i would enjoy games a lot less. An external wiki/youtube etc. gives you that choice when you need it, but it's far enough away that you can still enjoy those parts without using it.
- an_ko 2y ago
  Has that really changed recently? Different people have always enjoyed different things, and some don't like puzzles. That was as true a hundred years ago as now.
  - drw85 2y ago
    Yes and No, i think modern games lead more people to be like this. Because quest markers and gps navigations and hints and creative/story modes. Also a heavy emphasis on the rewards rather than the quest. I notice this myself when going back to older games like Final Fantasy 7 or 8 and misremembering how complex and complicated the UI, Menus and systems are. You just get used to these things, but i also think they are a bit immersion breaking and shift the focus a lot on the destination and not the journey.
    - Cyberdog 2y ago
      Don't forget the Yellow Paint Epidemic. Some game devs don't even want to risk the chance that players might have to stop and explore a little bit before they find the right path to continue the game.
Terr_ 2y ago
Anecdotally, I'm often looking things up when it feels like I may incur a permanent penalty for experimenting. An example of things done right would be Deus Ex (2000): While a given character build or approach may restrict you to certain paths forward, you almost always have the opportunity to backtrack, explore, and loot to the other routes later. In contrast, if the routes became totally inaccessible or a scripted event cleared them of useful items, then I would be more likely to consult a guide about pros and cons of the different options.
roshankhan28 2y ago
one game i can see that did it best is a way out.
MEMORYC_RRUPTED 2y ago
I really enjoyed it when ConcernedApe added a journal to stardew valley: per villager it keeps track of which gifts they enjoyed. Practically it's not all that different than looking that information up on a wiki, but the fact that it is in game and integrated made the experience way more pleasant. You still have to try out a ton of items, but at least you don't have to remember which ones worked for who. It's the same thing with open world quest markers. Nowadays, a lot of open world games give the player the option to remove quest markers outright. It's great to have that choice. But compared to, for example Morrowind, it often turns out to be an exercise in frustration, because the quests and the world haven't been designed with that in mind ("Go south from Vivec and turn left at the third tree", followed by an internal dialogue about if you should count a stump as a tree and a four hour detour is one of my best memories). There's also this middle ground: in Ghost of Tsushima you can summon the wind as a compass to guide you to your next quest marker. Mechanically it's the exact same thing as an arrow, or line to guide you. But the fact that it's so well integrated, and thematically fitting into the game, makes my brain experience it totally differently. Not needing it would be even better, but the way they implemented it is at least pleasant. I wish more games had a journal to keep track of things :). Why do I need notepad open, or a wiki open when playing satisfactory? If I make the effort to calculate the exact amount of iron ore I need to perfectly match my iron rod production, it'd be great if I could keep track of that in game.
bilekas 2y ago
This is a funny one. I am reminded of Elite Dangerous and how such an amazing game, concept and game loop (mostly) is top tier and exactly what I was looking for. The only way to play it properly or in any way usefully is to use third party tools. For example, markets statistics to see live market information in game for trading, you have to use a user created website. Want to see what components will get your ship in the configuration you want ? Third party tool. Want to plan a nice scenic route somewhere with some interesting/valuable finds on the way ? Third party tool. Want to go mining and be in anyway profitable, maybe looking for a particular resource, you guessed it, only through a third party tool. On one hand this has brought the community much closer together as the tools for that in game don't exists. But it's ridiculous that core gameplay loops depend on user created tools.
- kruczek 2y ago
  That's an interesting example, because I never felt the need for 3rd party tools while playing Elite Dangerous. I did some upgrades to my ship, mainly based on what I found in store of stations I visited. I did a bit of mining and was able to sell it for some profit. I'm sure I would be more efficient, if I'd use 3rd party tools, but it still didn't prevent me from actually playing and enjoying the game. I'd say it's much different to the "terraria problem" mentioned in the post.
  - jrootabega 2y ago
    I think this is a game that demonstrates especially well how online gaming discourse goes wrong. I believe that this game and Frontier have always deserved harsh criticism all throughout the past 10 years, but that criticism needs to be fair. Online gaming discourse favors instant gratification, min/maxing, low thought, and low complexity. Reddit, forums, and youtube create feedback/echo chambers that give the impression that there is only one correct way to play a game. Tribal thinking reinforces those bad viewpoints and drowns out, or even punishes, anyone who questions it. People participate in these patterns to feed their own ego more than explore the game. And a lot of people don't know any better; they're told that this is the best way to play, and they believe it and spread that misinformation, getting tribal approval and warm fuzzies for "helping" newbies. In most cases, Elite now has enough in-game information to let you become broadly knowledgeable and competent, but you have to pay attention, think, experiment, record, persist, and be patient. The high skill ceiling does not just apply to flying, but to understanding the world itself, and it can take a long time to approach it. Most things will take days to get comfortable with, and some things weeks or months! Its philosophy is at odds with reddit and youtube thinking, where the loudest signals you'll receive by far are how to min/max, how to obtain as much as possible as fast as possible, and what the "correct" ways of thinking about the game are. And certain aspects of the game were meant to be discoverable by the playerbase as a whole, rather than every individual player. Finding barnacles, Thargoids, and Guardian artifacts originally happened because someone in the large number of players searching for them just got lucky. It's frustrating that any given player has an infinitesimal chance of finding that kind of stuff, but that's the price of making something so rare that the news of its discovery can excite the whole playerbase.
googh 2y ago
Funny how the HN submission has more points than the original SE question.
techdmn 2y ago
The thing that strikes me about the question is the underlying desire to control the user. The creator wants people to figure things out rather than look them up. For a good game, make it the way you want. That's your choice. If someone solves the puzzles themselves, great! If they get stuck, or just want to blast through the game and use a wiki or guide, so what? That's their choice. As an author or creator you can choose how to make art. You do not get to control how people experience it. That would be creepy, though it doesn't seem to stop people from trying.
- kibwen 2y ago
  I'm sympathetic to the idea of people choosing to enjoy art however they like ("death of the author", etc.). However, I'm also sympathetic to the idea that an artist can have a certain specific sort of experience in mind, and that they're welcome to tailor the art in order to nudge people in the direction of that experience. I don't think it's creepy to attempt to guide viewers towards a specific experience, because that's basically just the process of making art in general; if you're making a horror movie, you shouldn't feel bad for not appealing to people who wanted to see a romantic comedy.
yokoprime 2y ago
Does it matter if players self-document and share knowledge? Its ultimately up to the players if they use that documentation. The main thing is if the game loop is enjoyable.
jshaqaw 2y ago
I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3. I remember being very proud of winning BG1 without looking up hints. Now I find myself on the wiki. Why? I’m almost 50. I’ve got kids, businesses, life, etc… I can’t play a game for hours on end of immersion every night. I get to game in an hour here hour there slices through the week. If I spent 8 of those slices looking for some random nugget instead of moving the story forward there is no way I’d keep playing. I have no illusions that I’m “beating” the game organically but I’m having fun immersed in a fantasy world and having fun is the only point here. PS - if you aren’t playing BG3 - this game is fantastic and a worthy heir to the BG 1/2 standard
- WillAdams 2y ago
  The thing is, I'd be glad of this sort of thing in-game which could be sought out at need (go to Elminster) or turned on/off (map guide arrow). I'm about 3 personal projects and 2 side jobs and 1 computer generation too far behind to play BG3 --- positive reports such as yours make me regret that, but I also worry about disturbing my pleasant memories of resolving a crisis and ensuring the best endings for my various companions....
- cyrnel 2y ago
  I've been playing BG3 for over a year now and it breaks pretty much all the rules in the accepted answer. There are puzzles that are only skippable with non-obvious cheesing. In-game knowledge is heavily relied upon. The quest journal is overly vague (and buggy sometimes). Item and spell descriptions are good at least, but many of those come from D&D anyway. The absolute worst offender is "Don't give choices with unexpected or unclear outcomes". Almost every decision has unclear outcomes, some with devastating consequences on later phases of the game. It's an impressive game with a great story and great combat, but only the most hardcore players are exempt from the mandatory save-scumming and wiki-reading IMO.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
    > Almost every decision has unclear outcomes And to make matters worse, many of the outcomes are identical. It's disheartening to save scum through an exchange only to find that the exact same thing happens no matter which option you choose. And then you'll see that you get some bonus effect for one choice for a d20 roll, which makes it seem more likely to succeed than the others, but then the number to beat is also higher, making it actually a worse option. > Item and spell descriptions are good at least I don't agree with this. Most item descriptions make no distinction between items you should definitely hold onto and ones that are just garbage to sell for gold, which you don't even need because there just isn't that much to buy relative to the amount of incense flooding the world. And finding out what it means for something to add e.g. "momentum" can be non-obvious. And dyes don't describe their use. And a potion/elixir might say that you can get the same effect from throw/splash vs drinking but not say that if you do then the effect goes from "until next long rest" to "for three turns". But the absolute worst here is the character selection and leveling. You have zero guidance whatsoever on what it means to pick a bard vs a druid etc, both short term and long term. It just assumes that have a D&D character guide. Turns out that bards are actually really good at combat magic after a few levels. Who knew.
__s 2y ago
Randomize recipes etc, then put them in hints throughout the game Been enjoying Zelda randomizers lately, it needs a bit of a wiki to understand mechanics etc. But a game designed for randomization could include difficulty curve & then have higher difficulty levels where that hand holding backs off like how many modern roguelites have difficulty level mechanics
Waterluvian 2y ago
I feel like you don’t try. You don’t own the audience. Make a game that rewards discovery and encourage that, but don’t try to lock out those who don’t want it.
jccalhoun 2y ago
I find myself looking up walkthroughs for two reasons: 1) I have no idea what I'm supposed to do or where I'm supposed to go next. There have been lots of times when I've not know where to go next or seem trapped in an area with no enemies and had to go look up how to get out. 2) I want to make sure what I'm trying is even possible. I remember one game where a boss would come out of a room and attack. I tried a dozen times to shut the door to trap the boss before I looked it up and found out I was supposed to run away and you couldn't close the door.
noirscape 2y ago
When it comes to games where learning/withholding information is an important element (so not platformers), I think there's two main design goals to consider if you want to avoid wikis: * Give good in-game info. Players resort to wikis because they don't feel like they know what they're doing and there's nothing more awful than making a choice you aren't ready for. Roguelikes tend to be varying levels of this; Risk of Rain for example will absolutely give you the exact percentages for its items in the collection menu, but during a run you don't need those percentages to know what you should pick. The bad side of this is The Binding of Isaac, which just has items that do not work at all, for any player whatsoever. Isaac is a game where you open a wiki/cheatsheet just to make sure you aren't picking up a run-ending item. CRPGs are universally terrible at this, something only amplified by their dice roll system. Disco Elysium is the only CRPG I've played that made choices work without pulling up a wiki because it makes it very clear early on that most consequences are yours and it will not lie to you about how far your choices will reach. * The Wiki Will Not Save You. This is for games like Nethack. Nethack has a wiki. Nethack also has so much depth that a single human will struggle to not just learn it, but might screw up even when they have all knowledge they need. Very difficult to design without alienating your players, but if it works, it's probably the best way to avoid wiki syndrome since there's so much info that most players will just end up mentally arranging the information they themselves need. (Noita I'd consider to be a partial success at this, where the wiki contains all valuable info for achievements without learning Swedish, but the actual spellcrafting and core loop is something with so much depth that every player I've seen try it ends up with their own preferred combos.)
deleted 2y ago
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scotty79 2y ago
I look at wiki when I'm faced with seemingly important decision. I think Papers Please did a great job with their checkpoint system. Basically each important decision creates a checkpoint you can start the game from right before that decision so you can check various scenarios yourself without extensive replaying of the same parts in the same way.

48 points by azeemba 2y ago

> The reasoning for this is that the player experience is greatly hindered by searching up answers to problems found in a game. This is an interesting statement to me, and I think the truth of it is debatable. It's certainly true if you're only looking at a specific sort of player experience, but there are other sorts of experiences some people want which is greatly enhanced by the use of reference material. Why would a game designer want to reduce the appeal of their game to those sorts of players? Players who want the "pure" game experience can simply not look things up on the wiki. Surely, in the end, game designers want to make games that are fun and engaging, so if the use of a wiki makes a game more fun and engaging to some, why would a game designer object to that?

musicale 2y ago
It really depends on the player and the game. I could imagine being disappointed by a player who uses a game guide to speed through the shortest path in a game and then complains that the game is too short (or that the puzzles are too easy.) Or by MMO players who spend 200 hours completing quests in a new expansion and then complain that there wasn't enough new content.
- musicale 2y ago
  Though I could imagine huge/dynamic/roguelike/AI games that get bigger and bigger the more people play them. So all of that time could be exploring/creating new game areas or storylines that didn't exist until you started exploring, something that regularly occurs in tabletop RPGs. The idea of a dungeon, planet, or galaxy so vast that it would take millions of players years to explore it fully is interesting as well. In that case different instances of the game could be extremely different, depending on where the players decided to go.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Reminds me of No Man's Sky. Which has multiple huge galaxies mostly unexplored. It is just that procedural generation is not yet at point where these generated worlds are actually interesting or different enough. You end up seeing same elements and things over and over again. I think big challenge now is how to get AI or system to generate good and novel feeling content. Not just rehashing same elements placed slightly different with some sliders moved around.
    - musicale 2y ago
      That is really exciting; I wonder if there is some really interesting world that just hasn't been generated/discovered yet? Or that will be in an upcoming/more advanced version of this sort of game?
- stavros 2y ago
  > I could imagine being disappointed by a player who uses a game guide to speed through the shortest path in a game and then complains that the game is too short (or that the puzzles are too easy.) Sure, but I doubt this straw man actually exists.
  - izacus 2y ago
    If you read the game reviews and message boards you will see a lot of people do just that and then complain very loudly.
    - deleted 2y ago
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fragmede 2y ago
> Players who want the "pure" game experience can simply not look things up on the wiki. Because people don't have the self control not to do that and want to get spoonfed the answer, even if not cheating would be more satisfying for them.
- izacus 2y ago
  "Given the choice, players will optimize all the fun out of their game." - this is a quote attributed to Sid Meier and it's very true. And reading Wikis is pretty much one of things that really fits this.
  - yreg 2y ago
    At the same time he probably didn't think about wikis in that regard since he included an in-depth Civilopedia in the Civilization games before wikis were a thing.
pm215 2y ago
On the other hand I think there are definitely situations and play styles where the player resorting to a wiki is a failure of game design. I mostly don't use wikis, but if I get into a situation where I don't feel like I'm making progress or have any idea what to do ("how do I even damage this boss at all?"; "I feel like I spent the last half hour wandering over the map and I have no clue where I need to go next"; that kind of thing), then I'm likely to look up the answer. And once I've found a walkthrough or wiki I'm probably going to keep using it even when the next part is less annoying. I think in that kind of case both the player and the designer are likely to feel it would have been a better game if that resort to the wiki was avoidable. There are also situations where I will happily look up a walkthrough because I've had enough "puzzle solving" fun and just want the "see the last bits of content" fun before I put the game down. I did the tail end of Tunic and Fez that way. This kind of thing I don't think is a game design failure -- it's just different players having different preferences for how much and how complicated they like riddle solving and secret finding gameplay.
Timshel 2y ago
Yeah this statement absolutely does not apply to me and I like that one of the answer point that the use of a wiki might be a failure from the game. Good example for this is the Witcher 3 ending. One of the ending which I would consider the most favorable is almost an easter egg and rely on specific answer in barely related dialogs. Easter egg are nice but don’t put the ending I’m most interested in behind some "choice" I made ...
- haunter 2y ago
  >Easter egg are nice but don’t put the ending I’m most interested in behind some "choice" I made ... Never play a Nier game lol
  - lmm 2y ago
    In Nier it's a lot less annoying because the game is specifically about that and makes it clear that it's about that.
kruczek 2y ago
> Players who want the "pure" game experience can simply not look things up on the wiki. Unfortunately it's not so simple, if you need wiki to search for the most basic information, because they game doesn't provide it. It's what the author actually describes as "terraria problem" and I fully agree with that sentiment: in Terraria you can craft things, but the game doesn't show you what you can craft, unless you are near the correct crafting station AND have sufficient resources on yourself to craft it. So in order to play without wiki you'd need to: 1. stuff your inventory with all possible resources you'd otherwise store in various chests 2. go to each of your crafting stations Needless to say, it is extremely tedious and still you might not see that some item can be crafted at a given station, because for example you only have 99 pieces of some resource and that item needs 100 pieces of that resource. So I'd say it's fine for some cryptic or more advanced mechanisms to be covered on wiki. But when I need to go to wiki simply to get a list of craftable items, then there's something seriously wrong with the UI design in the game.

NotGMan 2y ago

Minecraft is a good counterexample to what the author wants. People look up recipes all the time on wiki and yet Minecraft is the #1 best selling game, so obviously it isn't an issue in the real world.

InDubioProRubio 2y ago
There is a fragile relation there, between invested work and thus user investment and willingness to put in work. The UI can loose the "self-learn" mode, as soon, as the user has invested and is invested in the game behind it. Before that - you are fishing without bait and got no leverage.
yreg 2y ago
Minecraft is interesting in this regard since for the longest time there was no in-game recipe guide. It would be absolutely unreasonable to expect the players to figure out the crafting recipes on their own (perhaps beyond a few basic ones). So of course everyone used a wiki from the very start. I wonder if Notch ever spoke about this and what were his thoughts. Did he design the game already with a wiki in mind? It made it problematic for new players to play offline, so there are some downsides.
cybrexalpha 2y ago
Minecraft is still pretty opaque. It's gotten a lot better with the recipe book and advancement list giving some guides. But if you'd never played or interacted with Minecraft before and were dropped into the game I'm not sure you'd ever understand how to do certain things without outside help - be that the wiki or watching another player. Are the ruined portals dotted around enough to make you realise that you can craft a nether portal? How would you figure out how to make eyes of ender? Even if you made one would you understand what it does? Once you found a stronghold it's not unreasonable that you'd figure out how to open the portal, and once in the end the fight with the dragon should be pretty obvious (even if it takes you a while to figure out an effective strategy). But what then, would you find the end gateway and see the outlying end islands? Would you wander around enough to find a city and a ship? Would you understand what Elytra do, or what Shulker boxes do? Both of those elements (Elytra and Shulker Boxes) are so fundamental to how the game is actually played that it's a different game without them.

seanhunter 2y ago

Really disagree with the hypothesis the author has, and especially don't think that the player experience is hindered (at all) by searching for things in an external wiki. Most of the games I really like (Factorio, Dwarf Fortress, Subnautica, Valheim, Satisfactory, recently Shapez2 as examples) I enjoy partly because of the active community (and wikis are obviously part of that). I love seeing solutions that other people have found, and a big part of my enjoyment comes from comparing my own solutions with those from others in the community. In all of those examples I'm figuring things out myself and using a wiki and sometimes other community tools such as calculators etc. I would be really amazed if this person makes a good game when their focus is make players do A rather than B instead of "how do I make this game as much fun to play as possible". It's also likely that the gameplay systems are really shallow if they feel they would be harmed by people searching for information in a wiki.

fragmede 2y ago
Blame the dev all you want, something is lost by players cheating and just looking up the answer online.
- codetrotter 2y ago
  I’ve done both. I cheated my way through a single player game following a walkthrough all the way from start to finish. Only at the end did I realize that this took away a lot of the fun from the game. But I’ve also used a wiki to find crafting recipes for Minecraft back when I started playing. Looking up crafting recipes helped me find out what things I could craft. And it didn’t remove any of the joy I got out of playing Minecraft at all. And then there are other cases where I’ve looked at walkthroughs again but learning from my mistake I make a point of only looking when I’m really really stuck, and to only read as little as possible to get unstuck. So my opinion is yes it’s perfectly possible to ruin a good game for yourself by looking up info online. But if you learn from doing that to yourself you’ll probably learn to only use it when you really need it. And then the game remains fun to play.
- seanhunter 2y ago
  How is that cheating in a single-player game? What does cheating even mean in a single-player game. Seriously. The only rule in a single player game is you should do whatever seems like it would be fun for you[1]. For some people the fun comes in working things out, for others the fun comes from "making progress" (whatever that means in the game). For me personally it depends very much on the situation. It's not generally fun if you're just stuck banging your head against a wall so I totally get people looking up answers to things to get unstuck. From my perspective that's really fine. There have certainly been games (Subnautica is the most obvious example for me personally) where the sense of wonder and exploration was really a huge part of the experience for me so I didn't want to search external sources and spoiler it - I wanted to experience it all for myself, but even there if someone just wanted to have a map and know everything that was going to happen I would say that's fine let them do whatever they want to do. The dev should be focussing 100% on making the game fun. That's it. Focussing on preventing your players from doing something they want to do seems like a step back to the days where games had a single way to move forward and you had to do things exactly that way. That's definitely not a good way to design a fun game. [1] Multiplayer games are more complex of course because your actions affect other people so there is for sure cheating and other types of behaviour that I would personally consider unethical.

Timshel 2y ago

Not what the original author wanted but with game like Cyberpunk I wish the wiki would be IG :).

have_faith 2y ago

Does anyone remember the Horadric Cube from Diablo 2? Was there any mechanism in the game to discover all of the combinations? (I don’t think so). It was easy to work out a couple basic combos with gems and then you basically needed to look up the rest, which I always thought was a shame. Seems like it wouldn’t have been hard to make them all discoverable in-game without just guessing.

Fornax96 2y ago
I just used the cube as a backpack for extra inventory space, haha
- have_faith 2y ago
  I think I was too scared of losing it so kept it in the stash the whole time. (is it even possible to lose it?)
  - Fornax96 2y ago
    Not sure, it's been a long time since I played. But I don't think you could completely lose it.

troupo 2y ago

The question feels wrong because it's out of place. First you have to ask "what game am I building, and for whom?". Games with multiple levels of puzzles and meta gameplay wouldn't exist without an active community and wikis, and they are great partly because of that. Think Noita, Animal Well or even Binding of Isaac. On the other hand, you don't need a wiki to play and enjoy Ori and the Blind Forest

rspoerri 2y ago

The problem is that two different systems collide (in the example of Terraria). Having an open world game and a learning curve for the things the user needs to understand to progress. Looking up informations in a wiki most often happens when the game gets boring or overly complex for the player to have fun (check Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory on that). Games that do that well, such as Zelda (which does this very well) introduce new mechanics and scenarios in an very iterative way. By having a linear structure. Other games use AI to control the gameplay flow. A linear level structure could look like this: A & B are different types of enemies | A (new enemy) | A,A (more complex situation) | B (new enemy) | B,B (more complex situation) | A,B (new combination) | A,A,B,B (complex new combination) | ... This method works with lots of systems, such as level design elements, enemies or construction of ingame elements. The problem is that procedural content generation and open worlds make it hard for the game designer to introduce the content to the player in this order. interesting videos on this topic: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMggqenxuZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMggqenxuZc (Half-Life 2's Invisible Tutorial) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnt5zxb8W0Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnt5zxb8W0Y (Director AI for Balancing In-Game Experiences) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GV814cWiAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GV814cWiAw (Can we Improve Tutorials for Complex Games?)

haunter 2y ago
>introduce new mechanics and scenarios in an very iterative way. By having a linear structure. A lot of games are also ruined by this handhelding style of design where 20 hours in you are still seeing tutorials
- rspoerri 2y ago
  There is a balance between making a game to difficult and boring. You were likely talking a moment when the game got boring or repetitive, because you already understood the mechanics, when you encountered another gameplay tutorial explaining it. Also games might target new players, while you might have encountered similar game mechanics before. But even then a good tutorial will make it fun, although it may be easy to solve. It's also helps to make it solvable fast if you already know the mechanics. But still, if you add a new game mechanics 20 into a game, it is good practice to add a situation where you can learn to handle it. A good example is the gravity gun in half life, or specific features of it that only get available in the endgame.

PrivateButts 2y ago

For me, I run to wikis most often to get numbers. It's frustrating how far some games go to hide exactly how much faster an upgrade will make you, or what the fuck a status effect means. Dead by Daylight had this problem for a long time until they finally put numbers in perk descriptions. Risk of Rain 2 half implemented a good solution- tooltip style descriptions when you hover over items or terms, but it's not applied universally or more confusingly, not on the status effect icons that appear in a run.

PeterStuer 2y ago

Water runs downhill. Players will max out convenience. The only way is to make the ingame info easier to access, more convenient and complete than any 3rd party. E.g to beat a youtube video that shows you how to complete a quest, you can have a ghost of your character frontrunning the player and doing exactly what needs to be done. Most gamedesigners abhore even the thought of adding such a thing as they want players to explore and discover. And some will, but the majority that pay your bills will just use youtube or wikis or addons to just tell them what to do.

b112 2y ago
And some will, but the majority that pay your bills will just use youtube or wikis or addons to just tell them what to do. This cannot be true. It can't. If it is, I hope for us all. What's the point of it then?! Why do they even play? What joy is derived? I think I'll create an immersive headset where people have an overlay of someone vacuuming. Maybe then at least the world will be clean, while people just follow along on youtube demos. I guess to complete it, I'll give a reward sound at each room, with bonus points for completeness and catching every crumb in the couch cushions. A little casino like 'ding', and a drop of 'reward bucks', which go onto a card you can use to buy real world things, like food. My god, what have we all come to. I guess this is where Idiocracy lands in our lap. Put on helmet, follow a GPT walk through on how to perform brain surgery, get reward points to buy food and housing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcYbYhjdUb4&t=84s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcYbYhjdUb4&t=84s

cloogshicer 2y ago

The game that does this best is Outer Wilds. All the information in this game is discoverable on your own, driven by curiosity.

yreg 2y ago
And I think the game is so captivating that very few Outer Wilds players would let themselves be spoiled by reading the wiki unless they get absolutely stuck or after they complete the game.
- Kiro 2y ago
  I didn't like it and ended up watching a playthrough on YouTube instead.
- chii 2y ago
  you might want the wiki to get every single possible ending.

remoquete 2y ago

Video games used to have user manuals. Some were great and memorable! https://passo.uno/video-game-manuals-docs/ https://passo.uno/video-game-manuals-docs/

drw85 2y ago

I also think this signals a change in how games are played these days. There are many players that don't want to be challenged or explore, they want to complete tasks and get rewards. Some of them don't really care that much about the actual gameplay, as long as there is a quick way to complete sets of tasks and get their rewards. Some of my friends are like this, they blast through games without looking at anything but the tasks and rewards and they hate having to figure things out, explore, discover and other road blocks to their "task list". They move at break neck speed too, like their lives depend on it. It's really hard to keep up, becasue they never stop at look at anything, but just rush to the next marker to finish the next task. I had to actually stop playing certain types of games with them, because it would completely ruin the game for me. I like exploring and discovering and figuring things out. If everything has an easy hint, marker, or otherwise shortcut that takes that away or discourages it, i would enjoy games a lot less. An external wiki/youtube etc. gives you that choice when you need it, but it's far enough away that you can still enjoy those parts without using it.

an_ko 2y ago
Has that really changed recently? Different people have always enjoyed different things, and some don't like puzzles. That was as true a hundred years ago as now.
- drw85 2y ago
  Yes and No, i think modern games lead more people to be like this. Because quest markers and gps navigations and hints and creative/story modes. Also a heavy emphasis on the rewards rather than the quest. I notice this myself when going back to older games like Final Fantasy 7 or 8 and misremembering how complex and complicated the UI, Menus and systems are. You just get used to these things, but i also think they are a bit immersion breaking and shift the focus a lot on the destination and not the journey.
  - Cyberdog 2y ago
    Don't forget the Yellow Paint Epidemic. Some game devs don't even want to risk the chance that players might have to stop and explore a little bit before they find the right path to continue the game.

Terr_ 2y ago

Anecdotally, I'm often looking things up when it feels like I may incur a permanent penalty for experimenting. An example of things done right would be Deus Ex (2000): While a given character build or approach may restrict you to certain paths forward, you almost always have the opportunity to backtrack, explore, and loot to the other routes later. In contrast, if the routes became totally inaccessible or a scripted event cleared them of useful items, then I would be more likely to consult a guide about pros and cons of the different options.

roshankhan28 2y ago

one game i can see that did it best is a way out.

MEMORYC_RRUPTED 2y ago

I really enjoyed it when ConcernedApe added a journal to stardew valley: per villager it keeps track of which gifts they enjoyed. Practically it's not all that different than looking that information up on a wiki, but the fact that it is in game and integrated made the experience way more pleasant. You still have to try out a ton of items, but at least you don't have to remember which ones worked for who. It's the same thing with open world quest markers. Nowadays, a lot of open world games give the player the option to remove quest markers outright. It's great to have that choice. But compared to, for example Morrowind, it often turns out to be an exercise in frustration, because the quests and the world haven't been designed with that in mind ("Go south from Vivec and turn left at the third tree", followed by an internal dialogue about if you should count a stump as a tree and a four hour detour is one of my best memories). There's also this middle ground: in Ghost of Tsushima you can summon the wind as a compass to guide you to your next quest marker. Mechanically it's the exact same thing as an arrow, or line to guide you. But the fact that it's so well integrated, and thematically fitting into the game, makes my brain experience it totally differently. Not needing it would be even better, but the way they implemented it is at least pleasant. I wish more games had a journal to keep track of things :). Why do I need notepad open, or a wiki open when playing satisfactory? If I make the effort to calculate the exact amount of iron ore I need to perfectly match my iron rod production, it'd be great if I could keep track of that in game.

bilekas 2y ago

This is a funny one. I am reminded of Elite Dangerous and how such an amazing game, concept and game loop (mostly) is top tier and exactly what I was looking for. The only way to play it properly or in any way usefully is to use third party tools. For example, markets statistics to see live market information in game for trading, you have to use a user created website. Want to see what components will get your ship in the configuration you want ? Third party tool. Want to plan a nice scenic route somewhere with some interesting/valuable finds on the way ? Third party tool. Want to go mining and be in anyway profitable, maybe looking for a particular resource, you guessed it, only through a third party tool. On one hand this has brought the community much closer together as the tools for that in game don't exists. But it's ridiculous that core gameplay loops depend on user created tools.

kruczek 2y ago
That's an interesting example, because I never felt the need for 3rd party tools while playing Elite Dangerous. I did some upgrades to my ship, mainly based on what I found in store of stations I visited. I did a bit of mining and was able to sell it for some profit. I'm sure I would be more efficient, if I'd use 3rd party tools, but it still didn't prevent me from actually playing and enjoying the game. I'd say it's much different to the "terraria problem" mentioned in the post.
- jrootabega 2y ago
  I think this is a game that demonstrates especially well how online gaming discourse goes wrong. I believe that this game and Frontier have always deserved harsh criticism all throughout the past 10 years, but that criticism needs to be fair. Online gaming discourse favors instant gratification, min/maxing, low thought, and low complexity. Reddit, forums, and youtube create feedback/echo chambers that give the impression that there is only one correct way to play a game. Tribal thinking reinforces those bad viewpoints and drowns out, or even punishes, anyone who questions it. People participate in these patterns to feed their own ego more than explore the game. And a lot of people don't know any better; they're told that this is the best way to play, and they believe it and spread that misinformation, getting tribal approval and warm fuzzies for "helping" newbies. In most cases, Elite now has enough in-game information to let you become broadly knowledgeable and competent, but you have to pay attention, think, experiment, record, persist, and be patient. The high skill ceiling does not just apply to flying, but to understanding the world itself, and it can take a long time to approach it. Most things will take days to get comfortable with, and some things weeks or months! Its philosophy is at odds with reddit and youtube thinking, where the loudest signals you'll receive by far are how to min/max, how to obtain as much as possible as fast as possible, and what the "correct" ways of thinking about the game are. And certain aspects of the game were meant to be discoverable by the playerbase as a whole, rather than every individual player. Finding barnacles, Thargoids, and Guardian artifacts originally happened because someone in the large number of players searching for them just got lucky. It's frustrating that any given player has an infinitesimal chance of finding that kind of stuff, but that's the price of making something so rare that the news of its discovery can excite the whole playerbase.

googh 2y ago

Funny how the HN submission has more points than the original SE question.

techdmn 2y ago

The thing that strikes me about the question is the underlying desire to control the user. The creator wants people to figure things out rather than look them up. For a good game, make it the way you want. That's your choice. If someone solves the puzzles themselves, great! If they get stuck, or just want to blast through the game and use a wiki or guide, so what? That's their choice. As an author or creator you can choose how to make art. You do not get to control how people experience it. That would be creepy, though it doesn't seem to stop people from trying.

kibwen 2y ago
I'm sympathetic to the idea of people choosing to enjoy art however they like ("death of the author", etc.). However, I'm also sympathetic to the idea that an artist can have a certain specific sort of experience in mind, and that they're welcome to tailor the art in order to nudge people in the direction of that experience. I don't think it's creepy to attempt to guide viewers towards a specific experience, because that's basically just the process of making art in general; if you're making a horror movie, you shouldn't feel bad for not appealing to people who wanted to see a romantic comedy.

yokoprime 2y ago

Does it matter if players self-document and share knowledge? Its ultimately up to the players if they use that documentation. The main thing is if the game loop is enjoyable.

jshaqaw 2y ago

I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3. I remember being very proud of winning BG1 without looking up hints. Now I find myself on the wiki. Why? I’m almost 50. I’ve got kids, businesses, life, etc… I can’t play a game for hours on end of immersion every night. I get to game in an hour here hour there slices through the week. If I spent 8 of those slices looking for some random nugget instead of moving the story forward there is no way I’d keep playing. I have no illusions that I’m “beating” the game organically but I’m having fun immersed in a fantasy world and having fun is the only point here. PS - if you aren’t playing BG3 - this game is fantastic and a worthy heir to the BG 1/2 standard

WillAdams 2y ago
The thing is, I'd be glad of this sort of thing in-game which could be sought out at need (go to Elminster) or turned on/off (map guide arrow). I'm about 3 personal projects and 2 side jobs and 1 computer generation too far behind to play BG3 --- positive reports such as yours make me regret that, but I also worry about disturbing my pleasant memories of resolving a crisis and ensuring the best endings for my various companions....
cyrnel 2y ago
I've been playing BG3 for over a year now and it breaks pretty much all the rules in the accepted answer. There are puzzles that are only skippable with non-obvious cheesing. In-game knowledge is heavily relied upon. The quest journal is overly vague (and buggy sometimes). Item and spell descriptions are good at least, but many of those come from D&D anyway. The absolute worst offender is "Don't give choices with unexpected or unclear outcomes". Almost every decision has unclear outcomes, some with devastating consequences on later phases of the game. It's an impressive game with a great story and great combat, but only the most hardcore players are exempt from the mandatory save-scumming and wiki-reading IMO.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  > Almost every decision has unclear outcomes And to make matters worse, many of the outcomes are identical. It's disheartening to save scum through an exchange only to find that the exact same thing happens no matter which option you choose. And then you'll see that you get some bonus effect for one choice for a d20 roll, which makes it seem more likely to succeed than the others, but then the number to beat is also higher, making it actually a worse option. > Item and spell descriptions are good at least I don't agree with this. Most item descriptions make no distinction between items you should definitely hold onto and ones that are just garbage to sell for gold, which you don't even need because there just isn't that much to buy relative to the amount of incense flooding the world. And finding out what it means for something to add e.g. "momentum" can be non-obvious. And dyes don't describe their use. And a potion/elixir might say that you can get the same effect from throw/splash vs drinking but not say that if you do then the effect goes from "until next long rest" to "for three turns". But the absolute worst here is the character selection and leveling. You have zero guidance whatsoever on what it means to pick a bard vs a druid etc, both short term and long term. It just assumes that have a D&D character guide. Turns out that bards are actually really good at combat magic after a few levels. Who knew.

__s 2y ago

Randomize recipes etc, then put them in hints throughout the game Been enjoying Zelda randomizers lately, it needs a bit of a wiki to understand mechanics etc. But a game designed for randomization could include difficulty curve & then have higher difficulty levels where that hand holding backs off like how many modern roguelites have difficulty level mechanics

Waterluvian 2y ago

I feel like you don’t try. You don’t own the audience. Make a game that rewards discovery and encourage that, but don’t try to lock out those who don’t want it.

jccalhoun 2y ago

I find myself looking up walkthroughs for two reasons: 1) I have no idea what I'm supposed to do or where I'm supposed to go next. There have been lots of times when I've not know where to go next or seem trapped in an area with no enemies and had to go look up how to get out. 2) I want to make sure what I'm trying is even possible. I remember one game where a boss would come out of a room and attack. I tried a dozen times to shut the door to trap the boss before I looked it up and found out I was supposed to run away and you couldn't close the door.

noirscape 2y ago

When it comes to games where learning/withholding information is an important element (so not platformers), I think there's two main design goals to consider if you want to avoid wikis: * Give good in-game info. Players resort to wikis because they don't feel like they know what they're doing and there's nothing more awful than making a choice you aren't ready for. Roguelikes tend to be varying levels of this; Risk of Rain for example will absolutely give you the exact percentages for its items in the collection menu, but during a run you don't need those percentages to know what you should pick. The bad side of this is The Binding of Isaac, which just has items that do not work at all, for any player whatsoever. Isaac is a game where you open a wiki/cheatsheet just to make sure you aren't picking up a run-ending item. CRPGs are universally terrible at this, something only amplified by their dice roll system. Disco Elysium is the only CRPG I've played that made choices work without pulling up a wiki because it makes it very clear early on that most consequences are yours and it will not lie to you about how far your choices will reach. * The Wiki Will Not Save You. This is for games like Nethack. Nethack has a wiki. Nethack also has so much depth that a single human will struggle to not just learn it, but might screw up even when they have all knowledge they need. Very difficult to design without alienating your players, but if it works, it's probably the best way to avoid wiki syndrome since there's so much info that most players will just end up mentally arranging the information they themselves need. (Noita I'd consider to be a partial success at this, where the wiki contains all valuable info for achievements without learning Swedish, but the actual spellcrafting and core loop is something with so much depth that every player I've seen try it ends up with their own preferred combos.)

deleted 2y ago

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scotty79 2y ago

I look at wiki when I'm faced with seemingly important decision. I think Papers Please did a great job with their checkpoint system. Basically each important decision creates a checkpoint you can start the game from right before that decision so you can check various scenarios yourself without extensive replaying of the same parts in the same way.