Story Design - Story Telling pt.7
Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 10:32AM It seems to me that there is some kind of diametric opposition between gamers fans of story and of gameplay (even though the categories are often blended in a video game). Many critics seem to forgive poor stories in their action games (mostly shooters and fighters) if the gameplay is good. And many tend to put up with fairly terrible gameplay if the story is compelling. Gamers also tend to put themselves into either a gameplay or a story camp and, unfortunately, bash the other side. In this article we'll look at cases where these two side clash for control.
Gameplay on the left vs. story on the right.
With multiplayer games especially there has been great friction concerning fairness in games where players are free to build up their characters (typically in some kind of RPG fashion). The few ideas released about the next Smash Brothers game for Wii U have already stirred questions through the community. Smash Brothers has always been a fighting game where players can pick up and play according to a static set of conditions no matter what system/file they play on. But if players could customize or level up their characters in Smash Wii U, then the foundation on which all tiers, matchups, and skills are evaluated on would be a very different landscape. Some fear such a game would be too difficult to adjust to. I doubt this would be the case. Hardcore (devoted) competitive gamers tend to rise to meet great challenges. The bigger fear is ending up with a game like Advance Wars: Dual Strike where the customization weakens the balance and variety while adding complexity (read more here).
Other examples include free-to-play online games. The entire business model of free-to-play is built around incentivising players to pay money through microtransactions. The game makers provide a variety of items for purchase like cosmetic accoutrement, EXP boosters, better weapons, and other gameplay changing objects. The gamers who seem the most against this kind of model claim that they want their games to be skill based where the victor isn't mostly (or even largely) determined by their willingness to pay up. This is a fairly reasonable request and a tricky balancing act for the developers. Finding the sweet spot between being paid (which is a must) by providing the players with an opportunity to augment their gameplay experience without completely rendering non or less paying players inept is key. Without this balance, the game becomes free-to-lose not free-to-play.
Likewise, champions of real-time, skill-based competition are often opposed to RPG like leveling/customization elements in their games. The idea is they don't want to lose to someone with "equal or lesser skill" just because their opponent puts in more hours into the game. After all, what kind of skill balance would there be if a player can mindlessly grind for significant advantages in competition?
I want to push back on these ideas. First of all, the vast majority of gamers who claim to be all about skill can hardly define what skill is. Because of this lack of clarity it's difficult to explain that competition can sustain a large range of applicable skill. Fortunately, we use the DKART system here. It seems clear to me that practicing in a real time can be very similar to grinding in an RPG. Think about this example in terms of knowledge skill. Whether you build your LTM (long term memory) or MM (muscle memory), lots of practice time is required. When you grind for levels or money in an RPG time is also required. Depending on the task the knowledge skills needed to build LTM/MM or grind is comparable. After all, both take a sort of brute force type approach. When you couple this concept with my theory that all multiplayer games take the same amount of skill to continually play at the highest level and it should be clear that the fear of "unskilled" players beating "skilled players" because of any kind of leveling is unfounded.
The real issue here is that some players simply don't want to lose in certain ways. Whether you win using the most basic moves and strategies or the most borderline, broken, and advanced techniques, there will always be a gamer out there that will complain about how you beat them. It's hard to accept loss when you don't respect the manner in which you lose. It's also harder to respect something you don't understand and can't relate to. And if you're close minded about what skill is, then you're more likely to fall into the trap of labeling what you do as "true skill" and what your opponent does as "unskilled."
Personally, I've won and lost tournament matches because of "one time only" tricks (see example here and here). These are crafty little techniques that nobody falls for twice. Yes, it stinks to lose. But when you're still learning the game or the community is still formulating rules, you're likely to lose because of anything especially what you don't know. A trick you didn't know. A rule you didn't understand. A character you've never seen with a certain playstyle. Knowledge is power. And what you don't know may kill you. If you're upset when you lose because someone pressed his/her advantage in a way you didn't anticipate, then you should probably stop competing. After all, games with healthy metagames and communities will constantly redefine what it takes to compete and win.
by mare odomo
My Pokemon Story
When it takes time to work for a goal in a video game your journey to obtain reach the goal is a story. Technically, any of your actions during gameplay can contribute to the emergent gameplay narrative. This is part of what I mean when I say that many gamers do not mix story and competitive gameplay. In other words, there's a large group of gamers who seek to separate their journey from their competitive experiences. Just look at the Pokemon community and the responses of competitive battles who I interviewed in my article series.
In Pokemon it can take hours to weeks of work to catch Pokemon, breed, EV train, and raise them to competitive levels. Impatient or time strapped players use hacking devices to simply create Pokemon by punching in numbers into a spreadsheet. On the one hand this gives these players the flexibility to test out new Pokemon teams in minutes instead of weeks. But they also use these devices to maximize nearly all of their Pokemon's stats, a feat that is very difficult and time consuming when done legitimately. When they fight each other, using maximum power Pokemon is a new level playing field. But it's nearly impossible for non-hacking players to compete against them. So, while these competitive battlers have more variety in their games, they lose the significance of their personal adventure/story and some balancing factors.
When I look through my Pokemon that I've raised for battle in Pokemon Black I'm reminded of the long, emergent, and open ended gameplay story that is my journey. I have Pokemon imported from the GBA game Pokemon Fire Red from a play session that started in 2004. Along the years I've gotten help from friends and family alike. My Dugtrio was traded to me from my little sister back in 2007. My Venusaur is from a friend of mine. When I bring him out in battle I say "you can blame Drew for this one!" My Zoroark was a gift from a random player in Mexio that I got through the Pokemon GTS. Half my Pokemon my brother traded me so that they would level up faster. And my awesome Ferrothorn was a gift from my friend and rival, Matt. When Matt uses his special-attack trained Slowbro against me, he attacks with the power of "1,000 Litwicks" a phrase he says acknowledging the journey he underwent battling Litwicks just to EV train his Slowbro.
And it's not just the Pokemon trades that make my Pokemon journey unique. Raising the Pokemon was the product of a village. My brother specialized in EV training while I specialized in EXP training. Do you remember Mustardear from the blog comments? This fellow trainer stumbled across my blog and offered me a specially bred Bulbasaur. Apparently, he had one to spare from his work in one of the 4th generation Pokemon games. A few emails later, we had set up a asynchronous Pokemon trade using the Global GTS system. I'm thankful Mustardear's generous gift and look forward to putting his hard work to the test.
Half of my Pokemon adventure and what I consider to be Pokemon's story is what I make of it. This is not the same as saying that everything a person does is a part of their life's story and therefore part of a bigger narrative. I'm talking about stories contained and expressed completely within the confines of the video game. I'm talking about actions and elements the game recognizes, not the experiences I had outside of the game. Such emergent gameplay stories can be rich, personal, meaningful, and open ended. They definitely stand up against the more directed, less emergent video game stories.
I understand the feeling that some competitive players want to avoid most. They don't want to put tons of work on their Pokemon Teams (or any other game) only to battle and realize that they did something wrong hours, weeks, even months ago. They don't want to lose because they didn't optimize their strategy from the beginning. I know that many people play video games because success is accessible and open to everyone. The idea is with video games you don't have to worry about not being tall enough, physically fit enough, or other factors that we have to live with in real life. The truth is this isn't how it works. Video games are half-real. You bring at least half of your real personhood to the table. This includes all of your quirks, talents, skills, and problems.
Though you may not want to admit it, the reason you may lose in a Pokemon battle probably is because you didn't do something hours, weeks, or moths ago. You probably didn't commit yourself. You didn't take the time or have the knowhow to do it better and now you suffer for it. Maybe it hurts more to not have what it takes and know that you could have had it. Or maybe it's calming to know that hard work is universal. Regardless, instead of avoiding these stark realities, I think it's absolutely important that we embrace them. Because our failures are rich and personal stories too.
In part 8 I'll clear up the following 3 topics: ludonarrative unified theory, ludonarrative dissonance, and sympathetic resonance.
Pokemon, Super Smash Brothers in Balance, Competition, Skill, Story | Permalink | Print Article
Reader Comments (6)
i think this post touched on a good point. players do tend to forget about the overall experience because they are so focused to win the "pokemon league". also, i realized by not trying out different pokemon, i never got to know there full potential of the many different kinds out there. it's such a risk that you have to take. for example, playing a pokemon you think is really awesome may not be able to hold its own in the big leagues due to a lack of hp, ap, def, etc. i would like to know your take on that. because yes, it is awesome to play with the pokemon you like, but it is not so awesome to lose with them. i feel like, in the end, the person holding the stronger stat pokemon, even if we have the same level will win. (not really including element types).
@jrloves
Good point. I'm actually going to write something around this topic soon.
To you point, there are two issues here.
One is playing in a limited way because of ignorance, a lack of experience, or a lack of inspiration. Nobody wants to waste their time, but it can be very difficult to judge something like that in the early to mid point in a game. I can relate. Because I've been playing with grass starting Pokemon since Red I haven't had a lot of experience (until Gen. 5) with many other types let alone their strategies and unique moves.
Part of the problem is that initially the Pokemon we like are the one's we like for non-gameplay reasons. I chose all grass starters for my Pokemon adventures because I really like Botany. From here, I probably liked Pokemon based on how they looked. From here I became more and more familiar with what I knew, making it harder and harder to branch out. There are ways to encourage gamers to like things based on their function. This areas of design falls under tutorial, level design, and teaching.
Stats are great, but they aren't everything. A solid team strategy is more powerful than raw numbers. I have a link somewhere in my Pokemon article series of a person beating a team of lv. 70 Pokemon all with level 1 Pokemon. So, if you have enough knowhow, you can overcome stronger stat Pokemon. If you don't have a deep understanding of the game like this, then you're in a bit of a tough pot.
Whenever one tries to tell someone they're "doing it wrong" or even that they could be "doing it better" there will most likely be opposition.
As a casual Pokemon battler on online simulators, I figured that I'd say my two cents on this article. For one, some people, (me included), do not particularly care for where a Pokemon comes from, and find the narrative of the battles themselves infinitely more enjoyable. I'd chalk that one up to personal taste. As for my main point, you can say all you want that grinding is no different from practicing, but I would have to disagree.
"Grinding" is doing one repetitive action for the sake of gaining abstracted experience points, gear, EV's, what have you. This action requires little thought, because the action itself makes you better at the action, or even worse, makes you better a totally unrelated action. "Practicing" is doing one repetitive action for the sake of learning and improving one's own skills in an area.
The key difference is learning. Both activities do improve your ability to compete, but grinding requires little to no thought. It does not promote an increased understanding of the system. At no point while EV training a Pokemon did I ever have a moment thinking, "Aha! So that's how that works..."
Practice, on the other hand, involves critical thinking about what you are doing, the ways it is weak, and the ways it can be improved. I learned nothing about competitive battling by EV training a team of Pokemon on the cartridge. I learned a huge amount about a variety of skills in my first 5 battles online.
When it comes down to it, people prefer to be beaten by tactics that took thought and understanding of the game to create, as opposed to pure time spent. In a fighting game, practice mode is vital to experimenting with combos, but also to get the timing down on a combo you already know. For complaints about grind, think if spending time in practice mode increased the damage dealt by a combo by 1% for every 30 minutes in practice mode! This would be absolutely ludicrous, and would give someone a potential advantage, not by being more capable of launching a combo or being more knowledgeable on when that combo could be used, but purely by having the game reward him for spending time in practice mode.
The issue with Pokemon on the cartridges is this: Why should I spend weeks and months grinding to build a team, when I could be spending that time developing a deeper understanding of the game? The grind is the preliminary work to true learning, not learning itself. Shooting a thousand free throws is the preliminary work to learning about basketball. Killing a thousand Litwicks is the preliminary work to learning about Pokemon. The problem with the grind is when that preliminary work is more important than learning about the game. When the person who shot 1500 free throws is automatically a better player than the person who shot 1000, not by spending that time to learn more about the game or even coming to a deeper understanding of free throws, but because physics and probability alter themselves in his favor for the pure virtue of shooting 500 more free throws. This causes incongruities between the real world and the game world. The laws of physics don't bend over backwards to assist the player who shot more free throws, so why should the rules of the game flex to assist the player who solely spent more time hitting the attack button?
To clarify, I will say that the grind is a useful element of single player and cooperative multiplayer games. However, if applied to competitive multiplayer, it must be done with care to ensure that, in the timeframe that one would reasonably expect the player would be willing to play in, true practice and learning is more important than grind. The grind, ideally, would exist parallel to practice, so that both may be accomplished at the same time. The 100+ hours of grind required to make more than 1 competitively-viable Pokemon team on the cartridges is what I would call "beyond reasonable expectations", especially since this grind must be done BEFORE any true competitive play, and thus, practice, can be done.
@ Kevin
First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time to submit such a well expressed comment. You've given me many specific examples, which I love because it makes responding easier. So here's my detailed response.
I think your comments are quite telling. In this article series I talk about story design and how people interpret/understand stories. Then in this article, I talk about how people tend to like one kind versus the other and how this can be a very limited viewpoint. In the end, I think your comments and feelings are exactly what I referred to.
"For one, some people, (me included), do not particularly care for where a Pokemon comes from, and find the narrative of the battles themselves infinitely more enjoyable."
I hear what you're saying here. You don't really care about the flavor text or how cool a Pokemon looks. What you like the most is the gameplay and the story of your battles and the metagame that you participate in. However, how you expressed your view here may contridict what you say later.
""Grinding" is doing one repetitive action for the sake of gaining abstracted experience points, gear, EV's, what have you. This action requires little thought, because the action itself makes you better at the action, or even worse, makes you better a totally unrelated action."
Though definitions vary on what grinding is, you're mostly right here. I will say that it doesn't matter so much that the goal of grinding is "abstracted." All the content in a video game is an abstraction or is fictional. Whether the grinding action is totally unrelated to anythign else in the game can only be deterimed on a case by case basis. So, we'll move on.
"Practicing" is doing one repetitive action for the sake of learning and improving one's own skills in an area. The key difference is learning. Both activities do improve your ability to compete, but grinding requires little to no thought."
Learning is a much more complex topic than you make it out to be here. And while some defintions of practice are for acquiring skill, others are not: (to do something habitually or as a practice). Either way, grinding does require skill and can increase your chances of winning.
"Practice, on the other hand, involves critical thinking about what you are doing, the ways it is weak, and the ways it can be improved. I learned nothing about competitive battling by EV training a team of Pokemon on the cartridge. I learned a huge amount about a variety of skills in my first 5 battles online."
Not all practice invovles critical thinking. It takes seconds of thinking outside of the video game box to prove this. When I was a kid, at soccer practice I had to run laps. This takes very little critical thinking, yet the practice build up my abilities/skill (dexterity) to gain advantages in real games. Or, when I took Piano lessons I did a lot of finger exercises. These are very repetitive and are designed to increase finger flexibility and strength. Again, little critical thinking here. In fact, increasing LTM (long term memory) and MM (muscle memeory) are very similar to grinding. You can turn you brain on low to off and just rehearse.
"When it comes down to it, people prefer to be beaten by tactics that took thought and understanding of the game to create, as opposed to pure time spent."
When it comes down to it, people complain about anything when they lose. In a skill based competition of enough rounds, the victor is always the more skilled player. And this player is usually the person who put more time into getting better no matter what. Most people don't understand this, which is why most people aren't suited for competition.
" In a fighting game, practice mode is vital to experimenting with combos, but also to get the timing down on a combo you already know. For complaints about grind, think if spending time in practice mode increased the damage dealt by a combo by 1% for every 30 minutes in practice mode! This would be absolutely ludicrous, and would give someone a potential advantage, not by being more capable of launching a combo or being more knowledgeable on when that combo could be used, but purely by having the game reward him for spending time in practice mode."
I know this is a high level concept, but the scenario you described is basically how it works for skill based games already (especially fighters). You have to put in the work to develop your LTM or MM sometime to get good at these games. Whether this dedication is reflected in your combo accuracy or in a few stats, the victor will be the harder worker. Skillful work is a part of your skill based outcome. At the end of the day, the few players who put in the work to increase their "combo damage %" would fight on a more even competitive level in some repects. This is no different from Pokemon and all the training that goes into each Poke.
"The issue with Pokemon on the cartridges is this: Why should I spend weeks and months grinding to build a team, when I could be spending that time developing a deeper understanding of the game? "
The easy answer is, because that's how the game is made. If you don't want to work, then don't play/compete.
" The grind is the preliminary work to true learning, not learning itself. Shooting a thousand free throws is the preliminary work to learning about basketball. Killing a thousand Litwicks is the preliminary work to learning about Pokemon. The problem with the grind is when that preliminary work is more important than learning about the game. "
Be careful. If you ever find yourself saying words like "true" or "real" then you're probably formulating an argument you can't sustain/defend. Learning is learning. And once you begin picking and choosing what you think "true" learning is you're only limiting your mind. Why should you grind in Pokemon? Because that's what the rules are. And working for good Pokemon is part of the balance. By skipping these steps you're ultimately changing the game (probably through hacking/cheating). The "preliminary work" as you call it is an important part of the whole, but I wouldn't say more important. Just like running laps or finger exercises are the activities that will get me to my goal, but I wouldn't say they are more important.
"When the person who shot 1500 free throws is automatically a better player than the person who shot 1000, not by spending that time to learn more about the game or even coming to a deeper understanding of free throws, but because physics and probability alter themselves in his favor for the pure virtue of shooting 500 more free throws. This causes incongruities between the real world and the game world."
This is a terrible example. The person who practices more will most likely be better than the person who doesn't. This is especially true for tasks that require pure execution of muscle memory. Grinding out free throws IS a way of understanding the game better.
"The laws of physics don't bend over backwards to assist the player who shot more free throws, so why should the rules of the game flex to assist the player who solely spent more time hitting the attack button?"
The rules of the game don't flex. The rules of the game are set by the game developers. The only people flexing the rules are those who hack and cheat using external devices or battle simulators.
"The grind, ideally, would exist parallel to practice, so that both may be accomplished at the same time. The 100+ hours of grind required to make more than 1 competitively-viable Pokemon team on the cartridges is what I would call "beyond reasonable expectations", especially since this grind must be done BEFORE any true competitive play, and thus, practice, can be done."
They DO go hand in hand. And it doesn't take 100 hours to build a team from scratch. I just did it last month. I'm just about to do it again. Again you say "true" competitive play because you decided to ignore elements like grinding and raising Pokemon. I don't make such exclusions or excuses. If I want to be competitive, I'll do what it takes or I'll probably lose. With this said, competition starts with my attitude and the time I'm willing to set myself up for the best chances to win. If that's practicing combos in training mode, there's where my time will be. If it's carefully balancing EVs, IVs, TMs, and other features, then that's what I'll do.
Let me know what you think.
http://www.pokemonvgc.com/en/event/63
if you guys haven't see this.