Sucess IS Boring

[Captain_Crash]

Success IS rewarding! Certainly not boring!

The fact you level up and progress down the paths where you train and get more skilled is an integral part in any games. If you don't get better or your successes don't achieve much then this game will be dull.

 

[wisdom000]

Success IS rewarding! Certainly not boring!

The fact you level up and progress down the paths where you train and get more skilled is an integral part in any games. If you don't get better or your successes don't achieve much then this game will be dull.

I think you may end up being dissapointed with Cyberpunk....

There are no levels, you don't get more hit points, and there is no magic, there are no new powers or abilities when you "ding", you don't do more damage, you don't take less damage, you don't even get a t-shirt or nothing...

There is skill progression, but thats a looooooooong slow process, and its incremental in progression.

 

[braindancer12]

first off all your thread is really long......and second sucess isnt boring, you play because of sucess!

 

[Captain_Crash]

I think you may end up being dissapointed with Cyberpunk....

There are no levels, you don't get more hit points, and there is no magic, there are no new powers or abilities when you "ding", you don't do more damage, you don't take less damage, you don't even get a t-shirt or nothing...

There is skill progression, but thats a looooooooong slow process, and its incremental in progression.

Sorry but I think your under the illusion that this game will be a straight conversion from the P&P game to a video game. It wont be and there are changes that will be made (and will have to be made) for it to work.

That doesn't mean it wont remain close to the original, Mike himself has giving it its blessing of course, but the way you play in P&P cannot work for a 3D interactive video game environment


@braindancer12: Totally agree

 

[wisdom000]

Sorry but I think your under the illusion that this game will be a straight conversion from the P&P game to a video game. It wont be and there are changes that will be made (and will have to be made) for it to work.

That doesn't mean it wont remain close to the original, Mike himself has giving it its blessing of course, but the way you play in P&P cannot work for a 3D interactive video game environment


@braindancer12: Totally agree

Your post would be great, except none of the things I mentioned would have to be changed for it to work as a video game in the slightest.

The lack of levels is one of the defining characteristics of the game, I seriously doubt they would needlessly change that.

 

[Val3ri]

first off all your thread is really long......and second sucess isnt boring, you play because of sucess!

Yeah, but it is not success by itself what's boring. What I actually find boring is when success is taken for granted without any possibility of failing.

Yeah, if I have the monthly bad day we all have, I will blame anyone (including myself) if I fail doing a quest. But still that's better than not going to certain areas because the level is too low, or forgetting about about doing certain quest because they're are boring (and not a challenge at all).

Sorry but I think your under the illusion that this game will be a straight conversion from the P&P game to a video game. It wont be and there are changes that will be made (and will have to be made) for it to work.

That doesn't mean it wont remain close to the original, Mike himself has giving it its blessing of course, but the way you play in P&P cannot work for a 3D interactive video game environment


@braindancer12: Totally agree

There is no actual need for levels, and characteristics leveling due to them.

They could focuse more on which equipment do you choose, and (especially) how do you use it. And the characteristics of a character would improve according to how people play.

And I know it's difficult, but there is something that would be awesome: that everyone has actually the chance of getting anyone (using their brain and all that). I love it when people have a magnificent equipment, but they know that making a mistake could reduce that advantage to zero.

 

[Captain_Crash]

Sorry but I haven't mentioned levels at all. I totally agree you don't have to have them. Yet there will be something there that offers rewards regardless to help you succeed.

Success and reward is a fundamental requirement. You can remove levels, but you will have to replace it with another system that offers you the ability to "improve" whether its through better weapons or better augmentation (ect, ect).

Character progression shouldn't be slow with hard successes and limited reward. This will be a triple A game, if you make things exceptionally difficult with grinds and long fought out rewards then that is not going to be a good selling point. Compromises will be made and I think if you expect a straight conversion of the P&P style of system to a video game then your kidding yourself.

 

[Val3ri]

I don't think people here expect a straight conversion. But there are quite a number of things that should be considered, and others that should never appear.

What people in general suggest is ideas to keep what I'd call "the spirit of Cyberpunk game".

Otherwise, what we would have is "another game like every other game in the market, but this one with some details taken from Cyberpunk game atmosphere".

 

[wisdom000]

Sorry but I haven't mentioned levels at all. I totally agree you don't have to have them. Yet there will be something there that offers rewards regardless to help you succeed.
.

[
The fact you level up

errr

 

[Sydanyo]

How is that character development?

It sounds like just leveling up and getting new shit...

Well isn't that almost all character development is in computer games? You gain levels, whether it's character levels, skill levels, new perks, this or that. In addition to that, you also get new shit. In fact, getting new shit is the singular driving model of all MMO's these days, and the one of the greatest things for example in D&D games, whether tabletop or computer.

Having actual character development, something that has absolutely nothing to do with any variable of any sort, in computer games, is somewhat rare. Most of that is story driven, and you basically have a set of options, or just a single option. There's really no true character development in computer gaming, not in the sense that you truly would be in control of what happens in your life. Mainly because computer games are so incredibly limited, and always work within a very small sandbox or on very straight rails.

So yes, it sounds like "just leveling and getting new shit", which is what most "RPG" and adventure computer games are and have always been. And no, it's not character development, not really, but that's because the concept doesn't really exist in computer gaming.

Sounds to me almost like those trolls who camp at respawn points and bump off all the noobs just for the lolz of senseless PK. I have quit more games because of that kind of players than because of high level boredom.

The MUD I played in was well known for what it was, and people didn't join to play it for "PvE". The people who were there were there exactly for PK. So, there were no people there who would have quit because they got PK'd, and PK wasn't "senseless", in that it was the driving force behind playing in that MUD. There weren't very many "noobs" there either.

In games where I know there are people who just want to stroll through the fields picking flowers, I don't engage in similar activities. I don't "camp respawn points", for example in WoW.

I know there are people like that in games though, and I think everyone should have that knowledge when they start playing any particular game, so that they'd never have to quit the game because of players like that.

On the topic of success being boring... It kind of is, or at the very least it leads to boredom, unless you've got new goals to move on to immediately once you succeed in reaching your last goal. If there's nothing to move on to, you'll get bored. However, if there is, then it wasn't really any goal to reach anyway, and you didn't really succeed on anything, since you haven't reached the ultimate goal yet. Much like someone running a marathon doesn't really achieve success in running for 10 kilometers, even though that is one part of the journey.

It's the act of trying to succeed that's interesting and fun. Once you do succeed, that's it, and there's nothing more to do. So, failing in a system such as that allows you to keep on trying to succeed.

So yeah, I'd say success is boring.

 

[wisdom000]

Well isn't that almost all character development is in computer games? You gain levels, whether it's character levels, skill levels, new perks, this or that. In addition to that, you also get new shit. In fact, getting new shit is the singular driving model of all MMO's these days, and the one of the greatest things for example in D&D games, whether tabletop or computer.

Character progression is not the same as character development....

But the rest of your post I pretty much agree with.

 

[Captain_Crash]

errr

*head-desk*

Congratulations on twisting my words so that you convey them to mean something else. If you read my posts you know full well that they were not about leveling (which you seem to really want to talk about even though I pointed out that a leveling system isn't always needed). My focus was about needing rewards to outline success. I find it very amusing you decided to pick my posts apart rather then attempt a serious answer to my later points, which I guess you have no retort to.

But feel free not to. Im not wasting anymore of my time on with someone who clearly has to much free time on your hands like yourself.

 

[Sydanyo]

Character progression is not the same as character development

Very true. It's in the core of what I meant as well, which is that there really isn't character development in games, and instead it's character progression, or as I framed it earlier; character development in most computer games is simple character progression.

But I agree, those two things should not be confused nor should the former be used as flippantly in the place of the latter as I did.

 

[Sardukhar]

Yeah, Wisdom. You have way too much free time on your hands. That's your fault. Now explode.

Character development is pretty tough to do, for single-author "mainstream", at least to do well. For one thing, you have to have a start point and then be able to draw clear-ish contrasts to later points in the character's career. Tough and tougher when you have -some- people that like an open-world, tell-their-own-story gameplay style.

 

[wisdom000]

Yeah, Wisdom. You have way too much free time on your hands. That's your fault. Now explode.

Character development is pretty tough to do, for single-author "mainstream", at least to do well. For one thing, you have to have a start point and then be able to draw clear-ish contrasts to later points in the character's career. Tough and tougher when you have -some- people that like an open-world, tell-their-own-story gameplay style.

I know, truly I am a bastard. But I am also the bomb... its a conundrum...

And actually character development in an open world, tell your own story kind of game is really easy to do... whats hard is to do it in a way that reflects in the narrative of the game itself, but even then, games like Fallout NV did a pretty damn good job of it. Character development in that game is measured by npc reaction to you. I mean its easy to simplify it and just say faction... but the truth is, even within factions you can find yourself working in opposition to individuals, and you can lose and gain faction.... but it all comes down to how the npc's perceive you, which is really measured by how you perceive your character to be, and what role in the social net of the game you want him to fall into.

Of course most of the character development is still going to take place in your head, as your views on the world around your character and hsi place in it change... but its still better than just playing along with someone elses story.

From what I understand, Witcher had some pretty decent player driven character development, or at least the potential for it, via choices and NPC reactions, and the real limitations were because you were playing someone elses character, that couldn't deviate too far from his portrayal in the canon material.. With no such restriction in this game, I am pretty optimistic for CP 2077.

 

[Sardukhar]

We'll see.

I found my character development in FNV and Witcher 1 and 2 to be pretty minimal. Sure, people reacted to your choices. Sure, some were friends and some were enemies, but I didn't see any real change in my initial character perspective. Nor did I observe a lot of change in the characters beyond a simple good/bad, violent/less violent, fight/chat matrix.

In short, the more subtle perturbations such as motivation, political outlook, romantic ideals, compassion and ennui were barely dealt with, if at all. More of an on/off state, really.

Contrast this with PnP where your character can start out believing stronly or barely in a complicated set of values and by half-way through the campaign be earnestly convinced of their error and faulty reasoning, only to swing back and see the practical necessity of the original convictions. And all realised throughout the game, without any intention to do so on the part of the player.

I understand it's going to be difficult to measure out those kind of character arcs in a video game, without some pretty flimsy in-your-own-head roleplaying, but that's what I think of when I imagine character development,

 

[wisdom000]

We'll see.

I found my character development in FNV and Witcher 1 and 2 to be pretty minimal. Sure, people reacted to your choices. Sure, some were friends and some were enemies, but I didn't see any real change in my initial character perspective. Nor did I observe a lot of change in the characters beyond a simple good/bad, violent/less violent, fight/chat matrix.

In short, the more subtle perturbations such as motivation, political outlook, romantic ideals, compassion and ennui were barely dealt with, if at all. More of an on/off state, really.

Contrast this with PnP where your character can start out believing stronly or barely in a complicated set of values and by half-way through the campaign be earnestly convinced of their error and faulty reasoning, only to swing back and see the practical necessity of the original convictions. And all realised throughout the game, without any intention to do so on the part of the player.

I understand it's going to be difficult to measure out those kind of character arcs in a video game, without some pretty flimsy in-your-own-head roleplaying, but that's what I think of when I imagine character development,

Thats why I said even in the best scenarios its still really just all in your head...

Anything beats it being just totally scripted with no input though... because railroaded stories, no matter how well told, are still just railroads, and allow no deviation... and in an RPG, this game is my recital, I think it's very vital, to rock a rhyme, that's right on time... it's tricky....

 

[Sardukhar]

Which kind of brings us back to the topic of the thread: so much of my character's development in PnP comes from failure, from plans attempted and failed, from losses incurred and unresolved.

From the unpredictable and the unarguable. That's pretty hard to script - fallout New Vegas was kind of a rough outline for how you might do it in an open-ish world, but Night City is so much more populated, so much busier, I'm not sure how they could incorporate organic failure and it's effect on NPC interactions with you in an expanding plot line.

I really hope CDPR hired some brilliant writers and quest designers.

 

[wisdom000]

Which kind of brings us back to the topic of the thread: so much of my character's development in PnP comes from failure, from plans attempted and failed, from losses incurred and unresolved.

From the unpredictable and the unarguable. That's pretty hard to script - fallout New Vegas was kind of a rough outline for how you might do it in an open-ish world, but Night City is so much more populated, so much busier, I'm not sure how they could incorporate organic failure and it's effect on NPC interactions with you in an expanding plot line.

I really hope CDPR hired some brilliant writers and quest designers.

Well.... they haven't hired me yet...

So all we can really do is pray, but all I hear about is how great the Witcher story is...so I remain optimistic... On the other hands, it also from people telling me that the stories for RDR and GTA4 suck... so I don't know how much stock I put in them...

dammit... I don't know what to think...

 

[Sardukhar]

I'm thinking about develping a chart for people's hopes and excitement levels and adjusting it weekly. I could use labels to denote certain interesting points in the next two or three years, such as:

"First gameplay video! Three Day Flamewar Erupts! Eventually, Gregski steps in and locks the forums until we all apologised to each other! In Polish!"

"Announcement of character customization cancellation! Despite alliterative advantages, forum tears drown six unprepared passers-bye. FBI refuse to investigate or care."

"Pondsmith Agrees to Voice 30% of Game! Multiple posters male and female spontaneously self-conceive! "

"Poster Blank-Redge exposed as Vice-President Biden! Claims immunity from prosecution for infamous "Killable Children Game Mode.""

"Multi-player Co-Op Modes Announced! Both sides claim victory!"

"Cyberware lists revealed: Everything is In! Forums observe five minutes silence in memory of subsequent coronaries across the board."