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The quest for a Wiki-less game

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Re: The quest for a Wiki-less game

#31

Post by tetha »

seanhunter wrote: post #10

Really disagree with the hypothesis the author has, and especially don't think that the player experience is hindered (at all) by searching for things in an external wiki. Most of the games I really like (Factorio, Dwarf Fortress, Subnautica, Valheim, Satisfactory, recently Shapez2 as examples) I enjoy partly because of the active community (and wikis are obviously part of that). I love seeing solutions that other pe…

In my personal experience, it strongly depends on both the genre, and also if it is the first playthrough.

For example, for a point & click adventure, external knowledge can destroy the immersion and overall spell of the game very quickly. I just get yanked out of the atmosphere and the puzzle solving mode and then the spell tends to be gone. One of the reason why one of my barely moving side projects would be a minimal spoiler hint system for games like these.

On the other hand, games like DF, Technical Minecraft, more complex modded minecraft and such live and honestly thrive with the community, tooling and the wiki around. And it is no drawback - it makes it more fun and interesting. There are just so many mechanics in DF or in Gregtech to keep up with.

And then there are more middle-ground-ish games, like Terraria, Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon. Entirely playable and winnable without external information, but in a second run or after a certain amount of time, adding in external information can open your eyes to new levels of hilarity you never knew existed, or guide you towards the obscure niches of completion.

Re: The quest for a Wiki-less game

#32

Post by haunter »

Timshel wrote: post #21
JohnFen wrote: post #2

> The reasoning for this is that the player experience is greatly hindered by searching up answers to problems found in a game. This is an interesting statement to me, and I think the truth of it is debatable. It's certainly true if you're only looking at a specific sort of player experience, but there are other sorts of experiences some people want which is greatly enhanced by the use of reference material. Why woul…

Yeah this statement absolutely does not apply to me and I like that one of the answer point that the use of a wiki might be a failure from the game. Good example for this is the Witcher 3 ending. One of the ending which I would consider the most favorable is almost an easter egg and rely on specific answer in barely related dialogs. Easter egg are nice but don’t put the ending I’m most interested in behind some "choi…

>Easter egg are nice but don’t put the ending I’m most interested in behind some "choice" I made ...

Never play a Nier game lol

Re: The quest for a Wiki-less game

#34

Post by kruczek »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #27
kruczek wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would be really amazed if this person makes a good game when their focus is make players do A rather than B instead of "how do I make this game as much fun to play as possible". Would you consider Terraria a good game? I think at one point it was the highest rated game on Steam. And yet that game is exactly this way - it makes players do A rather than B: it is pretty much impossible to play it WITHOUT the wiki, b…

You entirely base your opinion about what you know the game CAN LOOK LIKE. If you don't have an expectation of Terraria, you don't know the depth and therefore play the game as it is. The only thing that is harming your fun is knowing how it could be by watching videos, streams whatever. Saying "it is impossible to play without a wiki" is entirely self inflicted by wrong expectation management. Of course people want…

You are partially correct - of course my expectations for Terraria were set partially by prior knowledge of similar games. But they were also set by Terraria screenshots, trailers and feature lists, where crafting was presented as one of the core features. Nowhere did they mention they are missing such a basic feature as a crafting list and I'd never suspect a modern game may be missing such a basic feature. So I don't really think it's unreasonable expectation on my part.

A person who lived under the rock and found Terraria one day, probably wouldn't call it unplayable, having nothing to compare it against. I remember back in old days, where you'd have to figure out many cryptic mechanisms on your own in the old games. But yet here we are - decades later, and yes I do expect modern games would fully learn from mistakes of the past and provide such basic functionality as crafting lists in the game itself.

Re: The quest for a Wiki-less game

#35

Post by b112 »

haunter wrote: post #22
Arisaka1 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a category of games whose depth goes so hard that they assume engagement outside of the application, and then there's Mega Man games who were built under the assumption that the player will enjoy trial and error, and to attempt to push through making the wrong stage choice by learning how to dodge boss mechanics. I firmly believe that the internet normalized metagaming as a side-effect (guides, talk to friend…

>The vast majority of games should never, ever be designed under the assumption that the player has access to Google Yet in the 90s/2000s we had games coming with full manual books with all the info printed, an offline wiki. Like HOMM2 my all time favorite http://homm2.free.fr/dl/pdf/Heroes%20of%20Might%20and%20Magi...

I think that all this really depends upon the game. Some are indeed designed to be more complex, yet in a good way. And there is a bit of a difference between a printed manual, and a wiki. I find that wikis often have solutions you're supposed to hunt for, where as a printed manual may tell a "story" of the land, and just give more generic "how to play" hints.

In this context, I am very much mystified by "I played through game Y in 2.5 hours!". Uh, what?! I just paid for this game, and my goal isn't to run directly to some arbitrary finish line. I want to see things. Explore things. Learn the story that is presented around me.

And I'm not referring to side-quests, although those are fun too. I mean, I've been in some games where there is just "stuff" in the world around me, and you can explore and find random info.

I'm referencing games such as "The Last of Us" re: PS3/2013 version, where you could look at newspaper boxes and make out headlines, something that didn't make it with the same legibility into the PS4 remake. (Newspapers were still to be found in the PS4 remake, but a lot of places where there were papers in newsboxes had legible headlines in the PS3 version, and just blurred stuff in the PS4 version).

To run a max speed through a game with all sorts of side-info, is like watching a plot laden movie at 5x on mute. What a waste of money, and joy.

Another example is Horizon Zero Dawn, where there were all sorts of interesting recordings to be found, and just random info to be gleamed about "what happened", regardless of other main/sub plot info. Again, to fast forward "yay I did this in 2 hours!" is madness in the extreme to me.

My point in the above is, that any sort of wiki requirement for these games is a solid ruin. What a way to reduce fun, if everything about the game, and things such as "how this world came about" is just laid out in a wiki.

Yet at the same time, I don't want all puzzles to be so easily solvable. I don't want my hand held. Imagine playing God of War, with all puzzles solvable in 1 second. Why even bother?

I wonder, there is often talk of great 'apathy' today in youth. Games are a part of youth. An example is 'hide and go seek', which in the real world teaches one how to be sneaky, how to think as another trying to hunt you, how to be clever, and just how to play with others. This game is teaching you to hunt, and to escape when being hunted!

Video games of my youth taught me puzzles, were difficult, required fast reflexes, and by no means did I think better gear was the answer to issues I was having.

Now games are often one dimensional. People look for the solve online before even playing. People have issues and 1 minute later are looking for a work around. When I was a kid, maybe I could find help by phoning a friend, but talk about embarrassing!

Yet with puzzles comes satisfaction when there is a solve.

And with easy answers, comes an empty feeling.

So back to the wiki or not, I really think there should be no wikis, because the potential for lost joy is massive.

Re: The quest for a Wiki-less game

#37

Post by b112 »

PeterStuer wrote: post #25

Water runs downhill. Players will max out convenience. The only way is to make the ingame info easier to access, more convenient and complete than any 3rd party. E.g to beat a youtube video that shows you how to complete a quest, you can have a ghost of your character frontrunning the player and doing exactly what needs to be done. Most gamedesigners abhore even the thought of adding such a thing as they want players…

And some will, but the majority that pay your bills will just use youtube or wikis or addons to just tell them what to do.

This cannot be true. It can't. If it is, I hope for us all.

What's the point of it then?! Why do they even play? What joy is derived?

I think I'll create an immersive headset where people have an overlay of someone vacuuming. Maybe then at least the world will be clean, while people just follow along on youtube demos.

I guess to complete it, I'll give a reward sound at each room, with bonus points for completeness and catching every crumb in the couch cushions. A little casino like 'ding', and a drop of 'reward bucks', which go onto a card you can use to buy real world things, like food.

My god, what have we all come to.

I guess this is where Idiocracy lands in our lap. Put on helmet, follow a GPT walk through on how to perform brain surgery, get reward points to buy food and housing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcYbYhjdUb4&t=84s

Re: The quest for a Wiki-less game

#38

Post by drw85 »

I also think this signals a change in how games are played these days.

There are many players that don't want to be challenged or explore, they want to complete tasks and get rewards. Some of them don't really care that much about the actual gameplay, as long as there is a quick way to complete sets of tasks and get their rewards.

Some of my friends are like this, they blast through games without looking at anything but the tasks and rewards and they hate having to figure things out, explore, discover and other road blocks to their "task list". They move at break neck speed too, like their lives depend on it. It's really hard to keep up, becasue they never stop at look at anything, but just rush to the next marker to finish the next task.

I had to actually stop playing certain types of games with them, because it would completely ruin the game for me.

I like exploring and discovering and figuring things out. If everything has an easy hint, marker, or otherwise shortcut that takes that away or discourages it, i would enjoy games a lot less.

An external wiki/youtube etc. gives you that choice when you need it, but it's far enough away that you can still enjoy those parts without using it.

Re: The quest for a Wiki-less game

#39

Post by robertlagrant »

thih9 wrote: post #19
seanhunter wrote: post #10

Really disagree with the hypothesis the author has, and especially don't think that the player experience is hindered (at all) by searching for things in an external wiki. Most of the games I really like (Factorio, Dwarf Fortress, Subnautica, Valheim, Satisfactory, recently Shapez2 as examples) I enjoy partly because of the active community (and wikis are obviously part of that). I love seeing solutions that other pe…

Agreed. In my case I enjoyed Vampire Survivors on iOS and my way of playing was 75% figuring out things on my own and 25% using the wiki. The wiki-friendly community was a big plus to me, it let me adjust my gaming experience to what I felt comfortable. Without that it's likely that I would consider the game too difficult and I'd stop playing. As it is now, I completed the game and I recommend it to others (available…

Yeah I think VS is a good example. I did a similar thing - just discovering some things, and having the wiki as a reference for others.

Re: The quest for a Wiki-less game

#40

Post by jajko »

tetha wrote: post #31
seanhunter wrote: post #10

Really disagree with the hypothesis the author has, and especially don't think that the player experience is hindered (at all) by searching for things in an external wiki. Most of the games I really like (Factorio, Dwarf Fortress, Subnautica, Valheim, Satisfactory, recently Shapez2 as examples) I enjoy partly because of the active community (and wikis are obviously part of that). I love seeing solutions that other pe…

In my personal experience, it strongly depends on both the genre, and also if it is the first playthrough. For example, for a point & click adventure, external knowledge can destroy the immersion and overall spell of the game very quickly. I just get yanked out of the atmosphere and the puzzle solving mode and then the spell tends to be gone. One of the reason why one of my barely moving side projects would be a mini…

I am currently playing the masterpiece Baldur's gate 3. You can totally do it without any prior knowledge, not looking at tips or how to solve some quests.

But - you can easily mess up things for good in the story, sometimes its not clear in dialogs how big consequences may be, sometimes decisions from far past affect matters and story will go in directions you don't want. Its absolutely massive game in terms of decision trees and consequences. And without any prior knowledge one will miss many if not most not-in-your-sight mechanics and connections. The creativity with ie various fighting approaches you can find in reddit is mind-boggling. Seeing some characters die because you missed something is pretty common too and it pisses me off.

Some people love playing it 3x through, or even more, getting better, playing with 1 character only. I have family, work, tons of passions so this is just a small time effort for me, I will never spend enough time to get really good at 3rd playthrough, I just grew up from such gaming and found more interesting stuff in our very short lives, to not end up later with deep regrets.

Larian studios were smart enough to offer very generous saving system (heck you can save even mid fights, generally unheard of) and overall there is a lot of confidence their gameplay is very robust regardless how casual / hardcore gamer are you. And it works, dammit it works so well, no matter the approach.

This is mechanics I can totally respect. In contrary, when authors force me to play only how they want and punish or block you for everything else, it shows me how shallow and unbalanced gameplay is, how little they trust it. Not everybody can do games like Larian, but sure as hell I wish they could.

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