20 Years, 20 Lessons Learned (in game design) from GDC 2016

SaliVader

SaliVader
I saw this post on Reddit.

At Game Developers Conference 2016 there was a great presentation from a veteran game designer (won't name them as it's off-topic, but they've worked on a globally successful game franchise for the last 20 years) about some of the lessons they've learned in the process.
Some of the titles speak for themselves, for others you'll need to watch the video or read the three part article to see the point being made.
Which of these do you think Frontier is doing well with Elite Dangerous, and which do you think they need to work on?

  1. Fighting against human nature is a losing battle
  2. Aesthetics matter
  3. Resonance is important
  4. Make use of piggybacking
  5. Don't confuse "interesting" with "fun"
  6. Understand what emotion your game is trying to evoke
  7. Allow the players the ability to make the game personal
  8. The details are where the players fall in love with your game
  9. Allow your players to have a sense of ownership
  10. Leave room for the player to explore
  11. If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail
  12. Don't design to prove you can do something
  13. Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win
  14. Don't be afraid to be blunt
  15. Design the component for its intended audience
  16. Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them
  17. You don't have to change much to change everything
  18. Restrictions breed creativity
  19. Your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them
  20. All the lessons connect
 

Duckfather

Duckfather
Those articles make a very interesting read. Thanks for bringing them to my attention [up]

Out of all of those, no 5 'Don't confuse interesting with fun' resonates most with me, based on my extensive experiences with exploration and Engineers. I'm hoping that the core improvements in 3.0 will bring something to the table for at least one of these though ;)
 

bitstorm

bitstorm
SaliVader said:
[*]The details are where the players fall in love with your game
[/LIST]
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Yes.

And I think FDev do this well, although compromises have been made recently, likely due to time constraints.

Was watching the PS4 livestream last night, they did an external of the SRV and I know it seems minor but seeing how the wheel thrusters fired in a realistic manner based on the player's actions was really great.

I mean at the time it was added we didn't even have a proper cam, they could have easily skipped this.

Also on a Twitch ED stream seeing the rear end of a T9 and seeing that the thrusters actually orientate as the player turns the ship, minor things but so cool.
 
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Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Presume i would have to read an article or something to understand what some of these mean


Fighting against human nature is a losing battle - True. Especially true when it comes to the forums.
Aesthetics matter - ED nails this
Resonance is important - Not sure what is meant here? Whether the game resonates with players? In that case, for me, yeah, ED does that.
Make use of piggybacking - No idea.
Don't confuse "interesting" with "fun" - Good point. Although both are good. I find ED both fun and interesting.
Understand what emotion your game is trying to evoke - ED: Scale, sense of awe, wonder, mystery, loneliness, danger.
Allow the players the ability to make the game personal - Depends on what they mean. Solo mode? A connection with the character?
The details are where the players fall in love with your game - Yeah, FD are good at those fine details on things.
Allow your players to have a sense of ownership - I own ships!
Leave room for the player to explore - Plenty of that.
If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail - I love ED. I also love crisp sandwiches.
Don't design to prove you can do something - Well, Stellar Forge might have been something like that, but they did pretty good with it.
Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win - There is no win in ED really, so doesn't apply.
Don't be afraid to be blunt - Oh, i wish they would be. Release Mike Evans!
Design the component for its intended audience - Hmm... fat bald middle aged men having mid life crises.... i think they nailed it!
Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them - Yeah, don't want to be bored. Fortunately ED gives me plenty of options, meaning i can always find something to do.
You don't have to change much to change everything - Yup, small changes can have a big impact.
Restrictions breed creativity - Hmm.... i thought that would be freedom. But hey, Engineers has certainly bred some creativity recently. :D
Your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them - An excellent point.
All the lessons connect - Probably.
 

Bran Tse Mallory

Bran Tse Mallory
Excellent post!

I watched the video with interest and I have to say number 5. Don't confuse interesting with fun. As already said there are various bits of Elite that are interesting but not always fun... Example, look at all the people trying to see the aliens, doing anything they can think of but never getting to see them. Frontier are good at generating the interest but lack of inclusion equals no fun.

I'm an explorer, I spent 2 hours last night jumping towards Sag A, saw some interesting things but did I have fun? In reflection no, I had music on, the wife and I were chatting... I even got up and played with the cat for half an hour such was the lack of things to actually do whilst on my travels. I did stop to look at an Earth like and considered if they could see me or not given what had been put in a thread I had up a few days ago... That was interesting but could I do anything other then that? No. Not really any fun to be had their either.

Having said that there are also many fun things to do in Elite but personally I don't find them interesting... It is a double edged sword when you have a game with such a diverse range of possibilities. Only this morning I watched an SC video (Sorry) where the narrator had tried to show two of his friends the game and how much fun it would be. As an Elite player I knew what was coming. He had shown them the video of the mission that you get in a bar and then get taken to the planet. His friends said to him afterwards 'Thats all well and good but where is the fun? What was the pilot doing before and during the quest?'. The narrator replied that he must of been waiting... Where is the fun in that?
 

shadragon

shadragon
Agony_Aunt said:
Make use of piggybacking - No idea.
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Piggybacking is a common term in game design. Essentially, it's the skill of designing a game mechanic around an already known and understood concept.

Example: Your game has a fighter jet. A real life fighter jet's nose goes up when you pull the stick back. If your in-game jet nose goes up when you pull the joystick back, the user instantly recognizes the action (and subsequent left, right and down controls.)

If you have the nose of your jet go down with CTRL - A and up with SHIFT - ALT - F, that's confusing and poor design.
 
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Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
shadragon said:
Piggybacking is a common term in game design. Essentially, it's the skill of designing a game mechanic around an already known and understood concept.

Example: Your game has a fighter jet. A real life fighter jet's nose goes up when you pull the stick back. If your in-game jet nose goes up when you pull the joystick back, the user instantly recognizes the action (and subsequent left, right and down controls.)

If you have the nose of your jet go down with CTRL - A and up with SHIFT - ALT - F, that's confusing and poor design.
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Thanks for the clarification.
 

knowles2

K
All 20 points are valid an actually elite dangerous is pretty good at at all of them.


Leave room for the player to explore
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I they certainly nailed that one in the most literal sense of the word.

Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win
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This is tricky to achieve because fun means something different to different people. Same with a few others on the the list.

Your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them
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Best one of the lot.

I'm sure I will watch the video at some point.
 
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Lobstris

Lobstris
Aesthetics matter
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Elite nails that quite well I think.

Don't confuse "interesting" with "fun"
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But also don't assume that your fun is my fun - know your target audience, which leads to...



If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail
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Welcome to Elite, where the number of ideas about the game = number of players. :D


Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win
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Not sure that's correct. Shouldn't there be multiple strategies and not just one meta? What are we winning in Elite anyway?

Design the component for its intended audience
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See previous comment.

Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them
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Oooops Elite, just oooops. :D
 

Actionman2222

Actionman2222
Excellent post my friend. I like how you broke it down for those that can't immediately watch the video or read the article.

Agony_Aunt said:
Allow the players the ability to make the game personal - Depends on what they mean. Solo mode? A connection with the character?
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Basically it means choice. Give the player the ability to choose or not to choose things. Buy the ship of your choice, outfit it to do the job you want it to do. Outfit it to do another job or buy another ship for it. need to travel a long distance? Strip off the weapons from your ship and loose weight, so much depth here! Plus the ability to paint your ship how you like and now name plates and a personalised avatar (though this avatar will be more important once you have space legs i think) etc. Elite gives you choice in spades in my opinion and absolutely nails this point, being that it's a kind of sandbox game.
 
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SaliVader

SaliVader
Actionman2222 said:
Excellent post my friend. I like how you broke it down for those that can't immediately watch the video or read the article.
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You should thank /u/_oohshiny , not me! The link is at the top of the post, so if you have an account on Reddit you can give them the upvote they deserve!
 

[VR] Deggial

[VR] Deggial
I think, Elite does many things well. I can't/won't to comment on every point, but some that spring to my attention.

  1. Fighting against human nature is a losing battle - Human nature is to gain benefits as easy and as fast as possible. All the "XYZ takes too long"-threads prove this. I don't want to play such a game, honestly. I don't know, whether or not ED does a good job here.
  2. Aesthetics matter - ED nails this one.
  3. Resonance is important - ?
  4. Make use of piggybacking - ED has a steep learning curve. But flying in VR while using HOTAS and pedals really feels natural. Trade is a common concept. Shooting stuff, too. I think, ED is in a good spot.
  5. Don't confuse "interesting" with "fun" - I love combat. ED is both interesting and fun in this aspect. Others - I have to admit it - still have room for imptovement. On the other hand, it is easy to spoil your own fun by using the internet. Trading, for example: Finding new trading opportunities by learning about the underlying game mechanics and scouting systems accordingly is interesting and fun(?). Playing a trader only goal-oriented for making money and thus relying on trade routes found by others (and shared in the net) not so much. All that remains is "grind". But it's again the "human nature" of point 1, I guess. You indeed can't fight it ...
  6. Understand what emotion your game is trying to evoke - ?
  7. Allow the players the ability to make the game personal - Since Holo-Me, ship naming (which barely circumnavigated a disaster) and multiple (purchasable) items in the store, ED is in a very good spot here.
  8. The details are where the players fall in love with your game - The game is full of beautiful details and I love it for them. Bingo!
  9. Allow your players to have a sense of ownership - I own a fleet of space ships.
  10. Leave room for the player to explore - 4 billion stars! But (currently?) a limited ammount of truely new experiences while exploring them.
  11. If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail - ?
  12. Don't design to prove you can do something - Only FDev can answer this. I don't think, it's a trap they fell into.
  13. Make the fun part also the correct strategy to win - no "winning" in ED
  14. Don't be afraid to be blunt - sometimes they are, sometimes they indeed are ...
  15. Design the component for its intended audience - I think, they did, didn't they?
  16. Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them - now, here is the beef. No, FDev, you missed this one! Things are beautiful in ED. Things take time in ED. Things might be interesting and fun. But generally, there is nothing really challenging. Danger is (almost) completely optional and can be avoided if choosen to do so. Cops help shooting down pirate lords. Destroyed cargo cannisters for missions will re-spawn. There is no real way to screw up, in ED! I wrote this since start: Please, FDev ... CHALLENGE ME!!!
  17. You don't have to change much to change everything - ?
  18. Restrictions breed creativity - I completely agree with this one! And initially, ED was great regarding this point. Power constrictions of many ships made compromises necessary, active power management was a thing and outfitting some ships a real challenge. I loved it. And as much as I like engineers and appreciate the conveniance of an overcharged power plant - it annihilated the previously interesting restrictions. A solution might be to make negative effects more significant (for example make the heat generated by overcharged power plants more noticable).
  19. Your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them - true ...
  20. All the lessons connect
 
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Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Deggial said:
[*]Restrictions breed creativity - I completely agree with this one! And initially, ED was great regarding this point. Power constrictions of many ships made compromises necessary, active power management was a thing and outfitting some ships a real chellange. I loved it. And as much as I like engineers and appreciate the conveniance of an overcharged power plant - it annihilated the previously interesting restrictions. A solution might be to make negative effects more significant (for example make the heat generated by overcharged power plants more noticable).
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Ah, that's a very good point actually. Pre-engineers things were much more of a balancing act. Now its more just a case of getting the right upgrades. Still, can't complain, it does allow for some crazy builds ;)
 
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