Should a Game restrict Us from Abusing it, or should We restrict Ourselves from Abusing it?

[LadyCrimson]

I prefer to think of these things as playstyle/personal preference rather than abuse. Abuse in this case is a rather subjective term. What's abuse to one person is silly fun, experimental fun, or possibly "I like this game but it's a little too difficult for me, but I still want to play/see it anyway" to others. Sure, often it's "cheesy" and certainly not "hardcore" but I really don't care what someone else wants to do with their game.

 

Things like having/keeping the pc console available/usable, saving before a fight/pickpocketing, etc. ... leave it up to the player to decide whether they want to take advantage of such things or not.

Things like limiting inventory/backpack space, having hunger or not, how many NPC's you can recruit at once, etc ... let the developers decide what they think works best for the design/concept of their game, but if difficulty options, pc-console commands, or mods means players can circumvent it if they wish, no big deal/have at it, I say.

[JFSOCC]

there are two ideas I see popping up: on one side there is "you don't want your experience ruined" on the other side I see "you're free to choose your own experience, even if that ruins your enjoyment"

Maybe it's good to look at why people abuse the game:

• It could be because they are zealous at having the maximum result out of every encounter (power-gaming)
  

that could be fixed by making it unclear what the maximum result is, having different outcomes be beneficial in different ways, and detrimental in different ways.

• Some might abuse out of fear to fail.
  

This could be prevented by either making failure less catastrophic, or having the result be ambiguous enough that it is unclear whether or not you failed.

players are smart however, and I have no doubt they'd figure it out. having no failure at all removes any challenge from the game as well. it's this type of abuse that is the hardest to deal with. I think that perhaps a player can be subtly conditioned by having the early game show that failure is not to be feared, at least not all the time.

I think the team went in the right direction by offering rewards for encounters and quests, regardless of how they are dealt with, because my failure to detect a trap won't mean I missed the experience for dismantling it.

 

Why else would a person abuse the game?

• well, they could be a beta tester, or a critic, trying to find balance issues, infinite xp exploits and the like.
  

in which case I'm fine with them abusing the hell out of it.

 

What else...

• well, perhaps the player doesn't care for the specific challenge he or she is currently offered, and wants to get through it, fast and efficiently.
  

As a developer you should ask yourself some serious questions if this happens. This could be solved by having only few essential quests, designing the quests so that they are enjoyable (though you can't always please everyone) and not trapping the player stuck in a location or quest. (so allowing them to cancel quests, and not locking the door behind them when they enter a dungeon.)

 

Finally the last reason I see someone trying to abuse the system, or cheat, is

• because they wish to be entertained more than engaged.
  

I think that an RPG might not be for you if that's the case, however, even here you can have workarounds. Don't care for dialogue? Find Combat too unenjoyable and want to progress in the story? This is solely at the doorstep of the developers. If they make a game engaging, players will be entertained as well as engaged. Don't let dialogue consist of just walls of text, making it a chore to read. Don't let combat be hordes of enemies without pause. don't let every door you open be a path to more of the same combat, don't let everyone you talk to have a book of text to read through. Pacing is important. Find other ways to challenge to player, find other ways to tell the story. (visual narrative is just as important as good dialogue)

Edited October 22, 2012 by JFSOCC

[jivex5k]

I don't understand why there's no third group:

Players who couldn't care less about other players gaming habits.

 

Why should we punish players who want to abuse their game simply because others don't like it?

If you don't like abusing games...then don't abuse them! Don't stop your little brother from using console commands and 200 save games.

No one is forcing you to reload after your favorite companion was killed.

 

If someone is abusing the game, please tell me how it affects YOU??? Because I can't wrap my head around it.

Edited October 22, 2012 by jivex5k

[harhar!]

If someone is abusing the game, please tell me how it affects YOU??? Because I can't wrap my head around it.

 

Probably because they don't have the discipline to do it on their own and want someone else to hold their hand.

 

On the other hand I'd like to know too how certain features are intended by the dev. If I can restspam I am obviously supposed to and if I find the super mega weapon x in the second dungeon I am obviously supposed to wear it. I expect the game to be balanced around it.

[Adhin]

I don't think its about limiting abuse or trying to 'stop' abuse but making it so that abuse doesn't give any giant gaps in advancement or advantages on the abusers part... outside of just straight up cheating of course. I think the issue comes in when the temptation 'to' abuse something is so heavily in the abusing favor it almost feels like the only way to play. Saving any time is something I agree with and can't stand save points. But both BG game, and DAO for that matter, where built with encounters in mind to literally kill you first show around. A lot of those games where built on the premise you'll die via ganking, gain pre-knowledge of the encounter via reloading and out-gank said encounter. That's just kinda bad implementation that's requiring a constant reload or constant rest mentality.

 

I guess kinda what TrashMan has been saying but for semantics sake I'd re-word it to, a well designed game shouldn't matter much if its abused. Mostly because once you get into the idea of it being 'hard' to abuse... well, that's where RDM comes from to try and make crap 'hard to pirate' and it just ****s on everyone else instead of folks going out of there way to abuse stuff. Two different things, I know, but it's a distinction I think that's important.

 

-edit-

Ahh just to re-iterate on this it has NOTHING to do with 'other' players habits, or that someone 'else' is going to abuse or cheat via a console/trainer or whatever (though this is about abuse not cheating). It's specifically about the pushing desire some design causes to try and force you to do that when you'd rather not. Some folks don't have issue with that, others do, I usually have less issue with it after I've played the game a few times, though considering how many games I've played now its generally not much of an issue.

 

Either way it's not about it being 'balanced for everyone' in away that means I care what others do, I don't. It's about trying to promote even play style with out making it seem like you 'have' to rest constantly or 'have' to reload every 5 minutes. Ultimately that comes down to difficult and challenging gameplay that's fair. Opening a door with 3 fireballs from mages you can't see 'at' the entrance that auto-kills you is... just bad encounter design (that's DAO mind you). Forces you to reload and fireball **** you can't see... just bad.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Adhin

[jivex5k]

So basically your saying you don't want this game to force you to use annoying/tedious tactics to win.

I agree with that.

[ReyVagabond]

Personaly i want a well made game with a designed to be FUN and not encourage me to Exploit the flaws of the game play.

 

As for rest i want to have rest in the game but i also want a mini game of sorts in the rest/Camp, for example. Resting cost resourses like food, bandages, and other stuff. at the start of the camp you chose shores for the comapanions like who will watch for enemies, who will go and gather resourses like food, wood, watter, who will heal who, who will try to repair the armor, etc.

 

And the questing was Why people Used the Rest exploit because no one wanted to face a big chalege wil low health and the best way to heal yourself was rest untill you where healed there was not penality for it.

so in a sistem when the first rest heals you to 100% then you dont need to rest spam as much.

 

but its allbout testing the game, i pleged enoght to beta test the game! and i will hope they make a fun system where you dont feel encouraged to exploit.

[nikolokolus]

It's the game designers job to build the box and it's my job to stretch my arms out and discover the limits of that box. But in order to be a game and not a interactive sandbox there have to designed boudaries and play mechanics.

Edited October 22, 2012 by nikolokolus

[Arkeus]

I find it interesting that people don't want to have the game "restrict" them, but then go on saying that people should learn how to restrict themselves.

 

This pretty much means that they know perfectly well that no one is going to restrict themselves, as, well, we want to be able to use the game possibilities fully.

 

It's just not fun, to, say, decide we can't use fireball because it will destroy the enemy too quickly. Or not equip carsomyr. And so on.

 

So, basically, we should be asking the devellopers to design the game with a baseline of "people are not going to restrict themselves". Now, it's obvious that most of us don't want the designers to restrict us either (Which is flat out weird, as the very point of a game is to restrict the player. No game exist that is not built on enforced restrictions). This means that encounters, magic and ability system should be designed in such a way that degenerate gameplay doesn't make the game degenerate.