Bioshock is too complex. Help!

[Dire Roach]

The Wiimote of the future.

 

[mountain hare]

One smart girl:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... r_game.php

Sara Pickell 16 Apr 2008 at 9:03 pm PST
This article appears, to me, to have a good idea at it's core, but to have missed the mark in all of it's arguments.

Go would probably have been the best starting point to bring up. Place stone on board with a 19x19 grid, when a stone is surrounded in all cardinal directions it is removed. If a group of stones cannot expand in any cardinal direction it is removed. There are white and black stones, and the person who starts has a point handicap of 4.5 stones.

The game takes 15 minutes to learn, and a lifetime to master.

In the article it often confused mechanics and options. A player will always have more than seven options available at any given time in Counterstrike for example. They have to choose between move forward, back, right, left, forward-right, forward-left, back-right, back-left, up, down(crouch), up-fbrl, down-fbrl, up-down, up-down-fbrl, fire, secondary fire, radio message, say something over voice, check scoreboard. The human mind simply conveniently groups those as a few major groups, move to avoid getting killed, move to reach objective, attack enemy, change modes, gather information, relay information, defend something or someone.

This confusion distorts the message. You see, what you are looking for is not a lack of mechanics but an economy of mechanics. You want the mechanic that adds the most options, for the least confusion and annoyance. To use an example in the comments here, creating a sword sheathing/sheath moving mechanic would be detrimental to most games because of it's poor economy. It creates an annoyance that will probably be repeated many times over, it adds the game play of moving the sheath to the right, left, up or down, and it's only purpose in combat would be to interrupt the streamlined feel since anytime they wished to sheath the weapon they would return to the annoyance, and can even cause confusion as players have to learn how to sheath a sword or learn to sheath the sword in the first place along with any number of accidental miss clicks activating it.

Movement, on the other hand, is excellent economy. It adds a ton of options form moment to moment as well as creating larger arcs of moving from point to point. It adds dodging in any form, and, so long as walls can't be shot through, a cover system of sorts. All from a single mechanic. I may even go out on a limb and say that movement is, at the end of the day, the most economical mechanic in all of games.

But to sum it up, there really isn't any reason to say that you need to limit mechanics. There is how ever a good argument for being economical, and remembering how much of the game's present focus you have to divvy up at any given time.

Which is pretty much what I tried to say earlier. Good complexity adds to the immersion and enjoyment of the game (eg. choosing which skills to invest in), bad complexity is just tedious and boring (eg. having to evacuate your PC's bowels every 12 hours in order to keep in him good health.)

 

[pkt-zer0]

One smart girl:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... r_game.php

...Or is she?

About Me
I'm a transsexual from Southern Arizona. I'm planning on entering the game industry.

 

[somnium]

One smart girl:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... r_game.php

Sara Pickell 16 Apr 2008 at 9:03 pm PST
This article appears, to me, to have a good idea at it's core, but to have missed the mark in all of it's arguments.

Go would probably have been the best starting point to bring up. Place stone on board with a 19x19 grid, when a stone is surrounded in all cardinal directions it is removed. If a group of stones cannot expand in any cardinal direction it is removed. There are white and black stones, and the person who starts has a point handicap of 4.5 stones.

The game takes 15 minutes to learn, and a lifetime to master.

In the article it often confused mechanics and options. A player will always have more than seven options available at any given time in Counterstrike for example. They have to choose between move forward, back, right, left, forward-right, forward-left, back-right, back-left, up, down(crouch), up-fbrl, down-fbrl, up-down, up-down-fbrl, fire, secondary fire, radio message, say something over voice, check scoreboard. The human mind simply conveniently groups those as a few major groups, move to avoid getting killed, move to reach objective, attack enemy, change modes, gather information, relay information, defend something or someone.

This confusion distorts the message. You see, what you are looking for is not a lack of mechanics but an economy of mechanics. You want the mechanic that adds the most options, for the least confusion and annoyance. To use an example in the comments here, creating a sword sheathing/sheath moving mechanic would be detrimental to most games because of it's poor economy. It creates an annoyance that will probably be repeated many times over, it adds the game play of moving the sheath to the right, left, up or down, and it's only purpose in combat would be to interrupt the streamlined feel since anytime they wished to sheath the weapon they would return to the annoyance, and can even cause confusion as players have to learn how to sheath a sword or learn to sheath the sword in the first place along with any number of accidental miss clicks activating it.

Movement, on the other hand, is excellent economy. It adds a ton of options form moment to moment as well as creating larger arcs of moving from point to point. It adds dodging in any form, and, so long as walls can't be shot through, a cover system of sorts. All from a single mechanic. I may even go out on a limb and say that movement is, at the end of the day, the most economical mechanic in all of games.

But to sum it up, there really isn't any reason to say that you need to limit mechanics. There is how ever a good argument for being economical, and remembering how much of the game's present focus you have to divvy up at any given time.

Which is pretty much what I tried to say earlier. Good complexity adds to the immersion and enjoyment of the game (eg. choosing which skills to invest in), bad complexity is just tedious and boring (eg. having to evacuate your PC's bowels every 12 hours in order to keep in him good health.)

The problem with this argument is that it still makes sweeping generalisations (though in a lesser degree then the article). What Bad complexity is is entirely subjective. It depends on what type of game you are going to make and thus your target audience. The above example might be out of place in a crpg like nwn, unnecessary tedious and detracting from the actual game. But in a survival game or a sim game this could add something to the game if it was properly executed.
In addition different types of game require different level of complexity on different levels. For example a strategy game versus a action-rpg. In order to have a reasonable complex crpg you probably need quite a few stats for your "units" while a strategy game can be satisfied with much less but but need things that would probably be too complex in the action crpg(a mainstream one that is) such as the larger number of units you (must) control, resource management and terrain/weather effects.

 

[Azrael the cat]

yeah...

One smart girl:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... r_game.php

...Or is she?

About Me
I'm a transsexual from Southern Arizona. I'm planning on entering the game industry.

...yeah, anyone planning on entering the game industry must be a real idiot

 

[elander_]

" Anonymous 15 Apr 2008 at 9:02 am PST
I'll say that I do agree some games try to push too much onto the player in the way of options. But personaly if I wanted an example of that I'd look to a game like Morrowind or Oblivion. Both are good games but figuring out what to do with yourself can be hard. "

LOL

 

[Kaiserin]

Bioshock was one of the most terrible examples of 'bloated and too complex' the guy could have thought of. It was obviously compromised for the Xbox 360, and overall accessibility. I understand what the hell he was trying to say, which is more or less the same thing ya'll are trying to say everytime ya'll cry about 'press a to cry' in Fallout 3.

Bioshock definitely didn't suffer from too many options. If anything, it suffered from a mild sense of arcadeishness, lack of exploration elements, and lack of inter-npc dynamics. It could have stood to have taken a few more cues from STALKER actually.

 

[Brother None]

I understand what the hell he was trying to say, which is more or less the same thing ya'll are trying to say everytime ya'll cry about 'press a to cry' in Fallout 3.

Hmm? I don't think so. The crying thing is a superfluous option that neither detracts nor adds from the game. Only if you add too much of that kind of nonsense, you get the Fallout 2-effect.

I think something closer to his argument would not be about superfluous, meaningless additions like the crying thing, it'd be too many options, especially if they're conflicting or unbalanced.

But honestly, that's not much of a problem in modern game design.

 

[Norfleet]

Hmm? I don't think so. The crying thing is a superfluous option that neither detracts nor adds from the game. Only if you add too much of that kind of nonsense, you get the Fallout 2-effect.

I have no idae why anyone cares about that "feature". It has even less relevance than cows and sheep that explode when clicked on repeatedly, and you can't really judge a game by its superfluous easter eggs.

 

[meeneque]

 

[Rhombus]

MY GOD!.. Please no! Who is this... idiot?

This made me un-lurk. Yikes!

I wonder what would they say about System Shock 2?...

The reason I didn't like BioShock was because it was a dumbing-down from SS2... and that game wasn't complex!...

Gawdammit...

Imagine all the frustration we would have felt if Doom had included jumping.

The pain, the horror, jumping!.. my.. so frustrating...

The Codex thinks the author is a goof and quite frankly I agree.

*signs his name underneath and reactivates lurk-mode*

 

[DoppelG]

Hmm? I don't think so. The crying thing is a superfluous option that neither detracts nor adds from the game. Only if you add too much of that kind of nonsense, you get the Fallout 2-effect.

I have no idae why anyone cares about that "feature". It has even less relevance than cows and sheep that explode when clicked on repeatedly, and you can't really judge a game by its superfluous easter eggs.

But thats just it, its seen as "the pinnacle of IMMURSHUN" in Fallout 3, to me it even fails at being a easer egg. For example, people argue that Falllout was full of "easer eggs" (surely Fallout 2, wich was a bit over the top) and thus argue all the stuff we hear about in Fallout 3 aint a big deal. The thing is that i don't think all "the stuff you hear about in Fallout 3" are that kind of easter eggs at all, to me it sounds like all those things simply are the game, blowing up nukular cars is the game, creating flaming swords is the game, ghouls that squirt radioactive fluids is the game, collecting bobbleheads is the game, the opposite of what ghouls were ment to be (namely "feral" or "animal") in Fallout is the game, a parody on how SM weren't the "big evil enemies" is the game, a parody on how "BoS" weren't the "goodie guys" is the game. Where are the fundaments of Fallout to hold it all in place? There are none (atleast, none we know about, yet), apart from "some visual flair tidbits here and there" like a Fallout poster or whatever.

 

[Araanor]

Someone hook this guy up with Victoria.

 

[JarlFrank]

Someone hook this guy up with Victoria.

Nice Prussia. I never did that when playing Prussia, just waited for the historical events on the Austro-Prussian war and then for France to attack me either through the Spain event or through just *hating* me. Just played a game with Prussia recently, and those Frenchies had no soldiers at my borders, which enabled me to march right into Paris and triggering the Three Hoorays event.

But somehow the North German and South German Unions didn't found [because in the Austro-Prussian war, the one who made peace with me was Bavaria, not Austria, but they made the peace for the whole alliance. Might be a bug] and one little one-province country didn't join my German Empire. Now I have some one-province shithole country in the middle of my Reich. Pfah.

 

[barzam]

Actually I kinda understand what that commenter tries to tell us about Oblivion. I spent some hours playing that game and I never could think of anything to do.. I ended up just running around outside. I guess you could put it that the options were plentyful but maybe not that interesting..

EDIT, KC: there are a few of those Sonic games for the DS as well :/

 

[JarlFrank]

Actually I kinda understand what that commenter tries to tell us about Oblivion. I spent some hours playing that game and I never could think of anything to do.. I ended up just running around outside. I guess you could put it that the options were plentyful but maybe not that interesting..

EDIT, KC: there are a few of those Sonic games for the DS as well :/

The options were plentiful, but they had no consequence at all. Just look at all the LARP that people do in that game. Complexity isn't "game has lots of options" but "game has lots of options which all actually *do* something to the player's character, to the gameworld, or to the gameplay".

 

[Kaiserin]

the opposite of what ghouls were ment to be (namely "feral" or "animal") in Fallout is the game

Totally off topic, but yeah, what is that? I always thought of ghouls as laid back stoners...

 

[Erzherzog]

Someone hook this guy up with Victoria.

Austria getting its ass getting handed to it, eh?

 

[User was nabbed fit]

Put this guy in front of a game like Arcanum and tell him he dies if he doesn't finish the game. The character creation part will probably drive him nuts. Provided he'd actually get past the first town, the sudden freedom/choices/dilemma of "WHERE DO I GO NEXT" on the world map would probably finish him...

 

[racofer]

Put this guy in front of a game like Arcanum....

That would be considered homicide.

 

[Nameless0ne]

Bioshock was definitely NOT a complex game. How can people even imagine this! I believe they are going to mention "Doom" as extremely complex and decision making-challenging FPS....so many monsters approaching...whom should i kill?? the one coming from left? the right? the horde behind me? Some one please kill me...my brain hurts...this is complicated shit boiled up there :evil:

The future definitely looks retarted. Fallout 3 will come down and bless the new-gen gamers with the "perfect design" and simplex mechanics...oh ya

 

[Starwars]

Putting the complexity issue aside for a moment, how *is* Bioshock as a stand-alone game? I don't care how it lives up to System Shock 2, but how is it on its own? Worth a playthrough?

 

[GeneralSamov]

I wonder how do those morons cope with the likes of Minesweeper, Solitaire or (God forbid!) Freecell. The probably consider them Windows' easter eggs...

 

[Azrael the cat]

not bad

Putting the complexity issue aside for a moment, how *is* Bioshock as a stand-alone game? I don't care how it lives up to System Shock 2, but how is it on its own? Worth a playthrough?

If you don't get sucked into the hype, it's not bad. I stand by what I mentioned in another thread - it was massively overhyped, but if you found in lying around on a blank CD having never heard of it, you'd go 'nice FPS'. It isn't a FPS-RPG hybrid like SS2, more of a FPS like SS1 but with more options (can use weapons, or upgrade hybrids, or go a pure melee build). Can't blame the developers for that - the said from the very start of the hype that it wasn't an rpg and would be more like SS1 than SS2. Frankly I thought it was a good game, at least worth a play-through, maybe 2, as there are genuinely a few different ways to approach the game (though they all involve killing) - traditional shooter is effective, especially once you get the elemental gun thingy, melee is prob overpowered if you have all the melee tonics equipped, you can go a predominantly plasmid + environment damage-path by upgrading the pyro flame attack and trying to fight near oil slicks and other inflammables, or by going the telekensis and object-throwing tactics. The easiest way is going a combo of disabling plasmid and melee (guns when fighting multiple, or enemies that hit hard in melee like the big daddies), i.e. stun with electricity then whack with wrench. Has a pretty neat photo-quest and research system, where you get damage bonuses and resistances for taking good photos of different types of enemies. Most of all, I loved the way that the most useful and powerful plasmid is the 1st one you get (electricity) - they made a conscious design decision to use side-grades rather than upgrades - everything is useful, but more guns, plasmids etc give you more flexibility.

Unfortunately they managed to very faithfully replicate the worst parts of SS2. Firstly, lack of NPC reaction - you just do what you're told by NPCs over the radio, or occasionally meet and kill them, or get taunted by them, just like in SS2. No dialogue, no options, only 2 or 3 characters get well developed (although 2 of them are very well developed - the Andrew Ryan and Adam characters I felt were a worthy successor to Shodan, the Many, delacroix etc). The game does make something of this in the later part, but I won't spoil that for you - unfortunately they don't really run with it past that, so it's more of a one-trick reveal than a game mechanic. Secondly, just like in SS2 the plot hits its highpoint far too early. Ok, not quite as early as in SS2 when they have the 'big reveal' like a third of the way into the game, and then finish off the stories of the only characters that you actually give a shit about just over half of the way through. Instead the plot really comes to a conclusion about 4/5 of the way through, the last part just being one over-long finale that you have no motivation to finish.

Aside from that though, don't mistake anger at the overhype machine for saying that the game is bad. It's a decent game - in fact for a mainstream cash cow game it is a damn good game - kicks the crap out of Halo 3, better than Crysis, not quite as good as Stalker (though depends on taste). Worth a play

 

[Noceur]

While I still haven't played through the whole game (I'm probably at the unmotivating finale mentioned above ), I have to agree with Azrael the cat on Bioshock. If you look at it as an action-game it is certainly worth a play-through.

Since the last patch you can also disable vita-chambers, if you don't like that sort of thing.
It's a very forgiving game, I guess you could say extremely so with vita-chambers.