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The Last Of Us 2
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Game Design 101: If a player can do something or is given a choice to do something they will do it.
In simple terms if you have a corridor blocked off with a knee high wall or a door players will try to get over them. And when the player finds out they are restricted by unnatural game design then the illusion and immersion is broken and you've lost the player.
You give the player rules and even if you restrict the player as long as they are aware of those restrictions they don't feel cheated. When the game designer changes those rules or restricts a player in an area that the player believes they have choice the player will feel cheated and you break that immersion.
I don't make the rules, this is the first thing all game designers should remember and consider when making a game. Its what I was thought
So surgery scene:Basically the game designer has designed this scenario with only one outcome. You shoot the doctor. Which is grand if the player wants to do that.
The problem is that the player still has full control over joel. If the player chooses another action the immersion breaks. Try to walk past and the player gets jankily blocked. Try to injure but not kill the doctor, doctor dies with animation as if he was blasted in the chest. Choose to hang around and ponder your decision, the scenario looks comical.
Another example of this type of poor game design is in Ninja theories DMC. There's sections as you move forward and the environment changes around the player making it seem like there's player agency and they are in trouble. Stop for a moment and you find out it's all just triggered by how far you walk forward.
Anyway back to the surgery room. If the game designer has one outcome there's better ways of doing this rather than giving the player that illusion of choice and shattering it once they try to express that choice. Have the player only have to pull the trigger with threat of game over if they don't do it in time. See MGS3 which did this really well. Or just have it as a cutscene.
I always mention spec ops as although some scenarios aren't perfect there's some excellent scenarios that take into account different players decisions. The mob scene for instance makes it seem like you have to shoot into the crowd but shooting into the air does the same thing. Of the scene with the hanging bodies. If the player chooses not to shoot the soldiers the outcome might still be the same but the game takes this into account and the player isn't cheated.
(One area I feel the game failed was the white phosphorous scene where the player has to launch the phosphorous to proceed and if you don't it's very unnatural that the game won't let you. For me this fails the same way the surgery scene in Last of Us fails).
Anyway a design flaw is a design flaw even if you perceive it. I was engrossed in that part of the game and then realizing that my choice wasn't taken into account just knocked me out of that engrossed state.
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If you were really engrossed in the game you wouldn't think twice about killing the people trying to vivisect your daughter.
If you were really engaged in the game you'd realise she wasn't your daughter :cool:
But seriously that doesn't excuse bad game design. It's like saying there's no issue with a game because you didn't run into a bug that is affecting a lot of people.Also you might have no issue with killing people especially ones trying to make sacrifices for the greater good, but I do which is why I made the decision I did. There was ways out of that situation that didn't involve killing unarmed civilians.
Although as a scientist (I've had a weird career path), the doctor was a complete hack if you read up on the additional info scattered around leading up to that point
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She was in every way except biologically, they clearly have a parent child relationship.Retr0gamer wrote: »If you were really engaged in the game you'd realise she wasn't your daughter :cool:
I think because of your background as soon as you get control you look for options, other people were swept up in the narrative.Retr0gamer wrote: »But seriously that doesn't excuse bad game design. It's like saying there's no issue with a game because you didn't run into a bug that is affecting a lot of people.
You probably should have turned away well before making it to the operating room then if you were happy to let Ellie die for the greater good.Retr0gamer wrote: »Also you might have no issue with killing people especially ones trying to make sacrifices for the greater good, but I do which is why I made the decision I did. There was ways out of that situation that didn't involve killing unarmed civilians.
Reading his notes and realising how inept the medical team were made it a whole lot easier to kill them.Retr0gamer wrote: »Although as a scientist (I've had a weird career path), the doctor was a complete hack if you read up on the additional info scattered around leading up to that point
And why spoiler text? this is the sequel thread.0 -
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Mr.Fantastic wrote: »That customization footage looks tasty.
Say it will look better on ps5 anyway, debating on whether to wait for it then or get it in the summer on the pro.
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Deleted User wrote: »The guy is holding up a knife and trying to stop you from taking Ellie. So of course you blast him.
I get that it looks a bit silly/buggy if you try not to blast him but 99% of gamers are not going to see that. They'll blast him without hesitation. You have to be actively contrarian or trying to break the game to see it.
Didn't think killing him was justified. So I shot his toe. It looked ridiculous, like a premier league footballer making the most of it. Tried to melee but that was super janky as well and the game wouldn't let.
The fact that I was looking for a way out of a morally grey situation meant I was pretty engrossed in the game at that stage. Then to find out that there was only the one way out left me disappointed and felt cheated by the design.
In that part of the game the player is given full freedom of movement and therefore has agency over their actions. It just feels so off in that moment when there's only one choice when the player has many. And a lot of why it sticks out so much is because up to that point the game got so much right. It's in the same game where the designer directs the camera towards the giraffes so you don't miss that moment and all other important kills are handled in a cutscene. I think a cutscene or MGS3 method would have worked better.Deleted User wrote: »You can be guaranteed it's a masterpiece of gaming if a certain few are actively nitpicking at this level for the sake of it.
Certain few so bothered by such a minuscule thing at end game when in reality a story is being told to the player and there is no choice in this matter if you are actively engaged and following the story from start to finish.
Yes you can call it nitpicking but then again that's what being critical about something is. I have said it was a great game that I really enjoyed but it's not perfect. The world would be a much more boring place if we all just agreed with each other and critical discourse is crucial to the enjoyment and appreciation of art. It's why I don't get fanboys being so defensive and just flat out dismissing any and all criticism. Discussing where something might not have worked and how it could have done stuff better I find far more interesting than fanboy defensive stances.
And yes to your first statement. The fact that people are being critical about it means it's a great game worth discussing.
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You probably should have turned away well before making it to the operating room then if you were happy to let Ellie die for the greater good.
Reading his notes and realising how inept the medical team were made it a whole lot easier to kill them.
You did an awful amount of killing as well for the same purpose. Being inept isn't a death sentence and the world seemed like it was in a dire predicament. Fact is I wasn't Joel and didn't have the same stakes or have the same mentality he had. Think that's why the decision should have been left to the narrative and not the player. It was his story and his mental state at the time was not the same as the average players.
It's interesting though that different people got different things from it.
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johnny_ultimate wrote: »My least favourite bit in the original TLOU by far was the sniper scene, where you’re in the house protecting Ellie from bandits and clickers. It’s such a lazy, bland piece of blockbuster game design - basically a turret section in the middle of the game. In a game at its best when you’re scraping for resources, that scene felt like any other AAA action game - and a reminder on how often Naughty Dog often in general fall back on long shooting sequences to fill out scenes unnecessarily.
It's a trap nearly all triple A developers fall into though. It's when the need for the game to be a videogame trumps the developers ambition. It would be nice if both developers could be braver in their designs, and the producers with the money would allow developers to be craver. You mentioned another moment like this with Uncharted 3 where Nathan is stranded in the desert and how it could have been so much more if the developer had followed through with the premise better. Illusion of Gaia's raft scene springs to mind, which is a similar scenario but the developer didn't compromise.
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Potential-Monke wrote: »I think ye are reading into these games too much, like ye are trying to find something wrong. A game can have hundreds of flaws, but if it draws you in, they don't matter. TLOU had it's issues, and I don't hold it in as high a regard as some do, but it was an extremely entertaining game. Games will never get it all right, but some come close. TLOU, God of War (2018), H:ZD, and many others are fantastic games if you let yourself be drawn in and don't allow a mechanic (or lack thereof) to overtake the enjoyment.
It's rare to get a game with excellent gameplay and story, so if something similar to that comes along and hooks me, I can easily overlook bad sections or mechanics. Like TLOU.
Nobody is denying it's a great game. And there'd nothing wrong with critical discourse about a game whether it's good or bad points. Last I checked this was a discussion forum. Videogame fans are weird. I mean you could talk about an absolute masterpiece of cinema and discuss where you see flaws but be a little negative about a videogame and its fanboys will shutdown all discussion about it. To overlook is just to bury your head in the sand and if you want to do that then do it, ignorance is bliss and it wont spoil your enjoyment of the game. I just don't understand people that want to do this then try to shutdown any discussion of negatives about a game they attach themselves to. It's bizarre behaviour. I suppose the same thing goes on with football fans and it still makes no sense there.
Anyway I'm all for discourse about any game, it's why I enjoy the likes of Matthewmatosis and Game Makers Toolkit. Hell you can even throw as much **** as you want at Ace Combat 7. Just as long as you remember that in the end I'll be at the right side of history.
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Well I'm not debating that it's not an amazing and enjoyable game. Can't take that away from it and even if I didn't think it was I can't take away your opinion of it.
These small parts of the game annoy me because the game is annoyingly almost brilliant. Almost but not quite. And they stand out because of the quality of the rest of the game. It's the difference between a Silent Hill 2 level of videogame and something that might have trouble scraping into my favourite games of all time.
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Potential-Monke wrote: »A good example would be if we did the same with sex. You could have the best, most mind blowing sexual encounter of your life, but if you were to really look into the experience, you could find things which would take away from that (always, there is no perfect sex, can't be when there are humans involved).
Protip: if you are going to use an analogy on a games forum, pick something that more than 25% of the regulars would have experienced. Like the perfect pop tart.
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Final ep of Nolan and troy's definitive playthrough of TLOU with Ashley and Neil as guests, should be a good one, as long as Troy lets the rest talk.
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