I talk about my views on game design as it pertains to fun versus realistic design...and I am sure it will be no surprise how I feel about this dichotomy.
For me, I like "realism" in games, but only when it serves the story. I like a little tedium in my games! If I'm playing an RPG and I'm about to go off and travel far and I know I won't be back to my base or house for a while, having to manage my inventory before I leave is fun. Planning out my journey is fun. Checking my map because I got lost is fun. Getting sick from some monster I fought along the way is fun. Because it's all these little things that add up to make the PLAYER'S story. The dev didn't plan out that journey for me, it just happened through all these little systems. But if I can fast travel to a place I've never been, if I can carry so much inventory crap that I don't have to do any planning, if I always have a marker on my map so I can't get lost... I dunno. It's not memorable. I like minor tedium, which often gets used synonymously with "realism."
And if the game doesn't have a story, at least that isn't written by the player(s), if so desired? 7 Days to Die doesn't have a story...yet. I'm honestly not sure it should myself, all things considered. Something tells me the sandbox is what people are enjoying and will continue to enjoy playing in with or without their friends and with only their own imaginations to accompany them. A story, factions, etc. once implemented, would most likely be derivative and uninteresting by comparison. It's not a RPG. It's not even a survival game, afic, because surviving in it is not actually an issue. It's a romp through a postapocalyptic world. Had the story come first; had that been the intention of the game from the start -- to tell a gripping story -- I could see it. But that wasn't the intention from the start and I have the uneasiest feeling that TFPs will be facing the kind of backlash Bethesda endured when a "story", if one can call it that, was plastered over the backstory, atmosphere and environmental storytelling that already existed in Fallout 76. "Adding NPCs" is pointless if those NPCs have nothing interesting to say. Green Hell's story mode is receiving similar criticism. "It's dull; it's predictable; it's uninteresting;" etc. Of course, it is. That wasn't the point of making the game. Honestly, former English major or no, I find myself drifting to games that *aren't* RPGs or, more at, games that don't fancy themselves RPGs because I can allow my own imagination to run wild in them whereas I can't in the vast majority of modern RPGs.
One thing I've passively chatted about with people is that players want believability, and not so much realism. If your game world has rules and you follow them, in both gameplay and story, it usually results in an immersive experience that's fun to play.
I've also found that many players enjoy the aspect of discovery and mystery, where many games these days will tell you exact numerical values for everything and remove any uncertainty around player strategy as well as any natural discovery of new strategies in favor of the numerical maximum. Deliberately obfuscating information from the player gives them more incentive to engage with elements they otherwise would never touch.
I live for these videos. Talking game design is literally my favourite conversation, when someone has the experience and passion to talk about it at this level, i get tingles.
Unnaturally high/far jump distances basically *need* to be in just about all video games because they allow you to abstract out all the other ways besides jumping people have to get places, like brief climbs or pulling yourself up.
Funny thing is there is nothing unrealistic about the jump height in fallout 3, new vegas, Arcanun, Fallout 1, Fallout 2 etc. Now how guns damage life is unrealistic but so fun in these games (tweaks needed for balance but not for realism)
@@fredrik3880not unrealistic in the sense of "impossible for a human", but the Fallout 3 protag, 18 years and only ever seen the Vault, has a standing jump of almost a meter, which is *a lot* for your average human
@@fredrik3880 they're an 18 year old kid without any type of athletic training. And his jump is professional athlete height. I want to see you jump a meter from a standstill. "a little more than average" my ass
It’s my humble opinion that immersion trumps both of these. I’d have to think more about it, but maybe there’s a Venn diagram of fun, realism and immersion with the marriage of the 3 being ideal. The games that come to mind are fallout new Vegas(hardcore mode), red dead redemption 2, and STALKER GAMMA. NV and RDR2 are some of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had, and while I’ve not played stalker gamma yet I’m in love with just about everything in it that I’ve seen. In stalker you drink vodka to remove radiation, it’s not realistic but it’s effective and has immersive elements. You’ll get drunk the more you drink and it adds challenge to playing, ideally you want proper meds to remove radiation and good equipment to avoid radiation when you have to encounter it. NV hardcore requires doctors bags for broken limbs, using them heals instantly which is unrealistic but more immersive than sticking a stimpacks in your leg via the pipboy even if they’re functionally identical. RDR2 had an animation for EVERYTHING you do which allows the game to reinforce that the experience is meant to slow you down and totally immerse you in the world. You can get shot in the head and it not kill you outright (sometimes) and eat beef jerky to recover. It’s not realistic but the gameplay informs the immersion. I’m really just spitballing here, and my examples might not be the best. But for me when I’m looking at games I’m looking for immersion more than anything, and the best immersive games are ALSO fun games, not just realistic.
I kinda disagree - I consider both immersion and realism to be elements that can lead to fun. How much, it depends on the type of player. Although I should say "enjoyment", instead of "fun". For example, I don't like the hardcore mode in New Vegas, it's not for me. I'm not having fun while playing it. If you prefer using it, it means you enjoy using it, you are having: fun. That doesn't mean you are happy or cheerful all the time, but you 'are' entertained! You probably would not play the game that way if you hated it, and it made you miserable.
Drinking alcohol to get rid of radiation in games from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series was a reference to advice distributed in USSR by order of the Politburo. This had a double effect. 1. People drank until they passed out out of fear - unconscious people complained less. 2. When people poisoned by alcohol felt sick and vomited the next day, they thought that it was either the alcohol's fault (even if the early effects of radiation resemble alcohol poisoning) or that the alcohol was helping their body get rid of harmful radiation. I remember that in Poland they tried to spread the same recommendation, but Poles are not that stupid. Moreover, there was a shortage of alcohol in stores because almost all production was taken by the USSR.
Realism can be a great opportunity to show creativity. Simulating reality in an engaging way can make a game all the more immersive. By the same token, breaking a bit from reality (but not too much) can work as well.
Fun & Realism aren't necessarily distinct from each other, what it comes down to, is what level of a difficult/frustrating time you're able to tolerate.
Plenty of really fun games like Project Zomboid have almost insane devotion to realism. A lot of the fun comes from having to treat the game world like you would in real life. It seems to me that "fulfilling the fantasy" or "immersion" is probably the greatest factor as to what is fun in a game, not whether the individual mechanics are "realistic" or not. I never cared for "realism", but from a world building point of view, a lack of consistency(without a reason) takes me out of a game. By all means, break your rules but at least give us some sort of reason why or make it mysterious or...something. When authors/creators take time to consider all the various aspects of their world, those details and considerations provide very strong immersion, at least for me
Zomboid is a good example of delayed gratification. By intentionally not offering the most "fun" (convenient) solutions such as quicksaves, easier gunplay, easier to obtain and larger inventory, better enemy detection. The game is making it harder on the player, but over time more rewarding.
As someone who really has fun with certain amounts of obnoxious realism in game design, I really enjoyed your thoughts. It's made me think more about how my own "realistic" design choices should still strive for a layer of fun.
I believe there is a subtle yet very important distinction between a game being immersive and a game being realistic. And while they are both intertwined, it's important to understand that there is not a linear relationship between the two. I want a game to be immersive, I want to believe that the game world exists and that my character is one moving part within it. Realism can do a very good job of this, like changing NPC reactions to a wide variety of player actions, it does a lot to make things more believable. At the same time, realism can completely break one's immersion. For example, playing RDR2 when you're searching a house for loot you have to open each and every drawer of a cupboard and pick up every individual item inside, all animations of which are done agonizingly slow. This is extremely realistic, to fault. This does not make me feel like I am a cowboy who is realizing that the everchanging world will pass him by if he doesn't change his ways, it makes me feel like a human playing a game with a life that will pass him by if he has to sit through another painful 30 seconds of useless animations.
I thought RS went overboard with that as well, but especially with things like Arthur simply taking a bath. Pick this limb; pick that limb; etc.? Uh, no. A cut scene or similar will be just fine there. Thank you. Searching drawers and such I didn't mind so much, but the linear campaign allongside the open world exploration was not exactly a marriage made in heaven, either Great, but flawed game. I think another commenter down the line mentioned that it was great when applied appropriately, appropriate being the operative word. If I'm surrounded by zombies that may decide to stop twitching and head my way when I'm trying to search the trunk of a car, for example, I don't mind a timer being applied to simulate the time it might take to actually open that trunk and search it, but when such timers are applied to every single action performed, I tend to become impatient with them because, as you say, we have real lives to live here and, if the time spent performing an action in a video game feels wasted, it's because we're wasting our actual lifetimes and are all too keenly aware of it.
There are companies like Blizzard who try to dictate the "fun" in their games to the point that if players find a way to have fun in the game that wasn't designed, they'll patch it out. Just like a book is really just a text prompt that triggers a story to play out in the reader's mind, I think that the fun in games happens in the interaction between the game and the player. The designer allows the player to interact with the game in ways that are fun. As a player it feels inappropriate when the designer tries to micromanage the fun instead of simply facilitating it. In some RPGs you gain a level after every main questline quest while the side content gives practically no XP. The designer is trying to keep such a tight rein on player progress that I can practically taste the bit.
I miss games with responsive controls and unrealistic movements so much. I enjoyed RDR2, don't get me wrong, but it was such a frustrating experience. I spent a lot of my time in that game screaming profanities at the screen when my character took 3 seconds to interact with something because he had to slowly adjust his position in order to start the animation. And what fun it is when you slam face-first into a corner five times in a row because Arthur has the turning angle of a sailboat. I get they were going for realism but in real life I only have those problems on a Friday night.
mr. cain, I've always wanted to create a game, but never in my life have found good teachers. You are the only developer I've seen that is passionate and actually wanting the game development industry to grow, which hasn't really grown in the last decade(besides graphics). If you're willing to teach I'm willing to learn, and work for you.
I never liked it when games get too caught up on realism. I always thought the more important thing is 'believability'. It's not quite the same thing. If you establish the right setting and whatnot, then even the most unrealistic things can still be believable.
I think a danger of thinking of things in terms of "fun" is that it can lead to shortsightedness in many cases, and be a kind of juvenile way of thinking about overall enjoyment. It is like saying the best food is whatever tastes the sweetest. I wouldn't want just pure sugar as a meal, but also wouldn't find the bitterness of things like dark chocolate or coffee palatable without any. Some of my favourite games are *not* fun, like TLOU, instead being more intense and stressful, but still enjoyable and memorable. Despite the absurdity of something like the zombie apocalypse scenario, the internal consistency of the game world becomes the foundation on which everything else is put into context and made believable.
This. I prefer thinking in terms of a game being enjoyable as opposed to "fun" for that very reason. There are a lot of games others think of as "fun" that I find all but utterly mindless and boring. If I can bring joy to a game and not have it rebuffed at every turn, chances are good I'm going to enjoy even a game that may have been universally panned by critics, players and, even, critics and players alike or, at least, find aspects of it to enjoy.
Yeah alot can be taken from the video because its so unspecific. The vid could say "dark souls should have an easy mode" because fun for the player (monkey brain). But on the other side of the coin - you stand your ground, say no to the monkey brain and delay the gratification.
I find the appeal of realism is that players expectations are naturally "realistic". When I pick up a shotgun in a game I expect it to have some characteristic based on experience, it is not fun when I discover it is only effective out to 15 meters. You can have fun unrealistic rules in games, but you have to make sure the player is informed of these rules.
I always loved finding a safe spot a stronger enemy couldnt get to. Sure its cheesy to blast away at them from safety, but maybe instead of having the enemy come to you, they could run away if they take too much damage without being able to close to attack range.
This is definitely an interesting video because of how different peoples view of fun is, some people have more fun with realism, and some don't. I always prefer a good balance because I find both fun for different reasons. Always loving hearing from you tim!
These days complaining about lack of realism has evolved into complaining about immersion-breaking. It's no longer about if it's realistic, it's if it sustains the illusion the game is presenting. And it's all encompassing to every aspect of the game, be it design, animation, graphics, UI etc etc.
A great example of Fun vs Realism, is when in valheim you had the ability to stun the enemies when they threw rocks at you, by blocking them with your shield, at any distance. they took it out and they had to re add it, because it was fun, and still is.
The question is not Fun vs Realism; there are people who play hardcore simulators and find them fun. For example: DCS, MSFS, Ready or not, Arma 3, etc. They think reading a 200-page fighter jet manual or getting killed by a single bullet is fun. So the real question is Silly vs Serious. How silly or how serious do you want to go, because both have their player base. Things like bullet sponge enemies can be fun for some players, but for others, it is an immersion breaker. One thing to mention is that realism doesn't necessarily equal immersion. For example, magic spells or sci-fi spaceships aren't real, but if they have a well-thought-out background and game lore, they can bring immersion to players. The idea I fully agree with in this video is the consistency of the rules. Regardless of whether it's silly or serious, those rules must remain constant throughout the game
I'm glad you mentioned movement first because it seems like, for at least a decade now, mainstream games have been trying way too hard to have "realistic" movement and it's one of the single biggest turn-offs for me. Hopping around like a moron in Morrowind or TF2 is a lot more fun to me than seeing my character "realistically" lose their footing and stumble on a slope in what feels like any third-person game released since GTA V
If they haven't gone in the opposite direction. I think I might actually have enjoyed the first Star Wars game I've played in more than two decades a whole lot more if player movement in the game wasn't nearly 100% "parkour" and puzzles. Systems like that just feel way too "video gamey" for my taste to the point that I find it impossible to become immersed in them because I'm constantly having to think about the game's mechanics. That same game's "Souls-like" light saber combat, otoh, felt pretty natural.
Loved the realism of RDR 2. For some people it was a big letdown but for the majority not. It immerse you more and make the world more tangable and interactive.
Thanks for all the videos, Tim! I like listening to them as a podcast - most episodes don't need visuals, and they're nice to just listen to on a walk. Maybe you could consider making it into a podcast, in case there's more people like that? :)
I still like some sort of logic to how things work even if its just a throw away line of text. It gives the unrealistic feeling some sort of grounded reality within the game world.
In my experience, when someone complains about something being unrealistic in a game, what they actually mean is that the behavior is unexpected in a bad way. That is, they expect something to happen and something else happens instead, and it throws them off.
Games that sport GURPS type realism is something I'd want as an option and not as a baked-in feature. I like that some RPGs have a Hardcore mode that put in a level of realism you can turn off and on if you want to. Some people like that sort of thing, and I like when a game gives me more freedom to play in ways I want to. It's why I like games with immersive sim qualities to them.
I was JUST talking about this in relation to Starfield! I feel like the words I hear that come the most in regard to this topic are: Realism, Consistency, Immersion, and Verisimilitude. I think they're all sort of red herrings for what the player (and designer) actually want. Of course, everyone wants the game to be fun, but the thing that really hurts fun the most is when you get knocked out of the flow of playing. When a game pulls you in and you're focused on what you're doing, then all of a sudden the illusion breaks because an assumption the player had was wrong. So really, I think what we're fighting against is the dissonance between the players' assumptions, the designers' intentions, and the game's simulation. So for a game to feel "realistic" is a misguided notion if the game is not "XYZ simulator 20XX". And instead focus on how to get the simulation to (as silently as possible) communicate and guide the players' assumptions to maintain Consistency/Immersion/Verisimilitude. An interesting application of this that violates the "fun principle" I think is like when Tim discussed maintaining what your game is NOT. Fallout does NOT have terminator robots. They might be fun to have, but they aren't consistent with the setting. You wouldn't necessarily break most players' immersion by adding them, but when the setting is alternate 50's retro future, adding terminators silently undermines that theme and muddies the players' assumptions. Maybe? That's my take on it at least.
The "fun vs. realism" balance must be among the most difficult to get right, if the developer even can, because what does and doesn't "break immersion" for one player may not for another. A good rule of thumb for RPGs, I would think, can be borrowed from literature: the suspension of disbelief. Break the suspension of disbelief in a RPG and you've broken immersion. Tim mentioned logical consistency and I think, perhaps, that's the number one element to get right. Break the logic of the world or universe you've created, especially on a whim, and brains will notice. So, while he says fun *trumps* realism, what I gather he means is that playing around with the physics and so forth of a video game is acceptable as long as it enhances the fun factor. Fallout 76's Marsupial mutation might be an excellent example. As long as the writers have come up with a reason for that "mutation" to be in the game, it's probably golden whereas, if a reason is not provided, it may not be. I gather that's why Tim and crew put so much research into what was going on at Mariposa military base: to try and keep the suspension of disbelief intact. Oddly enough, too much "realism" (real-time day/night cycles; "realistic" resource gathering mechanics, etc.) actually break immersion for me. Honestly, I think that's much of the reason why I personally have such a hard time getting into any of the "survival" games. (Aside from the fact that most are nearly 100% procedurally generated and, therefore, gameplay feels robotic, that is.) It's not because they can't be fun. Obviously, an awful lot of people are having fun with them, if not certain elements of them, but because most of the actions the player performs *feel* unnatural -- not "unrealistic," but unnatural -- my brain is screaming that this or that just isn't right. A good example might be slowing what otherwise would *feel* like perfectly natural movement to a crawl in an effort to make the player think they're having a harder time of it when their brain is saying the real life action doesn't feel that way. Upping the vehicle speeds in one game with which I'm familiar by only a *single* point resolved that feeling of "unnatural" movement for me. It didn't make the vehicles zip across the world map or anything like that, but when I had my avatar hop on a virtual bicycle, for example, I no longer felt he was moving in super slow motion.
Starfield like all other games is unrealistic. That is not the problem with it. The fact it isnt fun (trash story, horrible gameplay, uninteresting npcs, way worse atmosphere then previous bethesda games etc etc). Seriously Starfield is such let down i cant even grasp that this is what bethesda has become. An absolute travesty.
@@fredrik3880 It isn't objectively a fact that it isn't fun. It's just not fun for you apparently. Honestly, it just feels like Oblivion to me, albeit slightly more disjointed. I don't know how previous BGS games are suddenly being put on a pedestal when every single one has been claimed to have been a disappointment compared to the last one. The biggest differences with this one are it doesn't have 20+ years of IP history to gloss over everything nor the buffer of fantasy to keep it away from realism criticisms.
@@simulacrumgames oblivion is almost 20 years old. Now id be disappointed if Starfield was the same as a 20 year old game. Despite a much large team, strides in tech and knowledge that is what bethesda could do after all this time? Tread water for 20 years? But Starfield is much much much worse than oblivion. It is just absurd how they have produced that trash.
@@fredrik3880 The state of Starfield is perfectly understandable. Their tools really don't seem to have evolved that much. They're still in basically the same engine. What they've done is increase scope (breadth) and sacrificed complexity (depth). The game is far from "trash" but I think they did miss the mark of a complete BGS experience. IMO it looks like they almost completely focused on implementing a framework for mods to stand tall on. In that regard, its probably a successful project (we'll see what kind of improvements they made to modding next year it sounds like), but not really a successful/coherent BGS game. Definitely does feel like a reflection of AAA titles as of late, what with cyberpunk doing a complete overhaul on core gameplay systems and such. It's almost like these games need a 10-12 year dev cycle, but they need to recoup their costs around the 8 year mark 😂
I generally agree with you - fun should always trump realism. However, I do think that realism - or the illusion of it - can give us a deeper experience. And sometimes being more fun can coincide with being more realistic - or at least more believable. I mean, I'd much rather have the gunplay of Half-Life 2 or the hack 'n slash mechanics of Blade of Darkness and Devil May Cry, rather than the gunplay of Receiver or the hack 'n slash of Hellish Quart and Dark Souls. Also, the more realistic you make your mechanics, the more realistic you need to make everything else - graphical fidelity, animations... And then you start to come up to the limitations of the hardware and the fact that our digital inputs aren't a good way of interacting with a realistic system to begin with (e.g. when firing a gun looks 100% realistic, my brain is going to be pulled out of the experience if there also isn't any recoil when I fire). Instead, what I think designers looking for realism should focus on is making the mechanics feel realistic, rather than actually trying to make them realistic. E.g. does Devil May Cry have a more realistic combat system compared to Dark Souls, Hellish Quart or Sifu? As someone with over 18 years of experience in martial arts, most of which is in weapons-based systems, I would argue that yes - Devil May Cry feels way more realistic than Dark Souls. Even though its combat system is flashy and over-the-top, it relies on being proactive and acting on instinct. As you're playing it, it actually comes really close to making you feel like you're in an actual fight. Meanwhile, Dark Souls just feels like drunk people fighting. Its emphasis on dodges and parries means that every enemy needs to telegraph their moves from a mile away, and the emphasis on difficulty also means that your attacks execution needs to be delayed. This makes it look and feel like you're a bunch if beginners who have no idea what they're doing :D Now, I'm not saying that Dark Souls is a bad game. Even though I'm not a fan, there's a very good reason its combat system is the way it is. I'm just saying that due to its focus on challenge, it doesn't feel or look believable. It works for Dark Souls, because the game never set out to be believable. But it doesn't work for me, because I mainly play games to feel stuff :D
You could say that Enemy sponges are unrealistic but same applies if you say: enemy sponges are not fun. So there is pretty much no difference with this example. Pretty neat video, thanks!
I think one of my favorite odd things I've seen. Is when someone tries to make a game just ultra realistic to the point where it is cumbersome and frustrating to use compared to real life. And that then becomes fun because it's a goofy level of difficult.
It's a both 'and/or' for me. I like "Realism" to make up the borders and foundation of the sandbox. But not necessarily what goes on in the sandbox. Fx, the "Puddle of Death" AKA 'Protag steps one foot in a body of water and instantly dies.' That's not fun or realistic. Then on the other hand we have other games where the Protag _can_ swim. With a full set of powered armor on, effectively making them a bi-pedal tank, plus an extra 150 lb of random loot and weaponry in their inventory. Not realistic either, and silly at best. But it's usually one or the other. And I'd much prefer a bit of realism there. Like, you can swim, but _not_ in full heavy armor. It's a too often overlooked concept that could help diversify character builds and add to light or no armor sneak-thief builds and take a little away from the "all-purpose tank." It's the same as the 'Higher Jump.' It's only more fun if you actually land again. At the moment, most water encounters in FP-RPGs are equivalent to just flying whenever you jump. Just my personal two cents.
One interesting thing in regards to realism is that people don't necessarily prefer something that is truly realistic. They prefer things to match their perception of realism, which is often entirely different from what is actually realistic.
The Long Dark has lots of issues and lots of potential but the #1 thing that had me turn off playing it after about 10 hours way way way way way way back was no jumping it's supposed to be super-realistic, but, there's no jump it feels like a stranglehold on the player
Great points! I think it also depends on genre to some extent--I certainly don't expect realism in a Pokemon game or KOTOR, while R6Siege went downhill over the years as they abandoned realism. One interesting thing I read many years back was a game designer discussing a Vietnam War FPS they were working on said that they had a goal of making the game authentic but not realistic. The distinction was that the uniforms, vehicles, weapons, et cetera would be authentic to the time period but the scenarios and combat would focus on being fun for the player rather than being a realistic portrayal of combat during the Vietnam War. That sounds like a fair and meaningful distinction; it also makes me wonder--similar to your thoughts on randomness--when people say they want realism, do they really just want authenticity?
a rule I have with games is that if I have to think about how high my numbers are compared to other characters, then I'm not gonna enjoy my time spent.
I dislike it when games forces me to play a certain way. For example, removing the option to save because the devs don't want the player to savescum. Or not being able to toggle off hardcore mode, etc. If people want a game to be a certain way, then it's easier for them to play it like that. If they want a hardcore mode, then they can just delete the savefile when their character dies. Don't have it the other way around because there's no option to pick if so.
I love that after I watched your video about design pillars I went to rework a gdd I'm writing up to include them. Very helpful. Now I'm watching this video and it makes me feel like I'm the right track when you mention putting "Fun trumps realism" as the first design pillar for The Outer World when the first pillar I came up with for my game is "Balance is good but fun is better". Not exactly the same but I believe it's the same gist. I dunno. Would love to hear your thoughts on my phrasing and help validate for me if it's a solid design pillar. The concept is still very new to me and I'm only really starting me video game dev journey with this. I've done a nice handful of tabletop games, enough to make me feel like an accomplished game designer despite never really actually publishing any of them (not overly bothered about the financial profit side of making games but I am trying to fix that for the sake of building a career). Either way, thank you so much for your insightful videos. I've been gradually getting through them recently and I find you quite inspiring. Anyway, thank you also if you happen to take the time to read this, even more so if you respond. Regards.
I play GURPS (4th edition). I find managing the risk of the death spiral and one-hit-kill weapons to be really fun and hit points in D&D to be comparatively flat, particularly 5th edition at high levels. This kind of thing probably plays better at the table than it did in your prototype, though. In the world of computer games, the GURPS ruleset seems a better fit for a roguelike, where much of your character advancement is expected to come from equipment and learning the game, instead of grinding up to a higher pool of hit-points. All that being said, there are a number of ways 4th edition can enable the "hero shrugging off blows" trope. The one that I think would work best for a computer game is wildcard points. If you got injured while using a wildcard skill, you can spend a wildcard point to turn the hit into a glancing blow.
I watched a GDC video where a publisher gave his 10 tips for your game pitch and he had to say that realism isn't really a relevant metric unless you are pitching a game that has a specific purpose for it e.g. physics simulation game. I think what matters instead of realism is believability, the sense that the balance of things is relevant to the game. A cartoony game where if you shoot one body part or another it doesn't affect damage versus something like sniper elite where its graphics and subject matter is more realistic so the damage is too. In that case realism is just one contextual tool inside of the toolbox of believability.
The only circumstance where I care about realism is either when it's part of a central mechanic (eg: Food availability is low, therefore food locations should be primarily in kitchens), or if the game explicitly states something then the game should be realistically consistent (eg: in the local culture, eating in one's bedroom is a social norm. Therefore, bedrooms are a good secondary source of food) Essentially, I only care about realism if it directly affects my ability to not fail at the game. So long as I'm not dying to an arbitrarily essential game mechanic because that mechanic is so random as to be unpredictable, I'm good
Question: what are your opinions on making a game that appeals to a broad audience vs a targeted narrower audience? Back when street fighter 4 came out me and a friend of mine, who plays competitively, were having this discussion about whether it was better for them to simplify the controls to appeal to a broader audience at the expense of disappointing the core audience. I feel this was a consideration the later fallout games have had too.
They added an option for simplified controls for Street Fighter 6, increasing accessibility. Most of the core audience ignores it, while a vocal minority complains. SF6 has high retention for a fighting game.
I think Realism should be implemented as long as it doesn't DETRACT from the fun. Realism is good only when it makes the game MORE interesting and MORE fun.
I just finished Ultima Underworld for the first time and this was on my mind the whole time. So many systems in that game are realistic to keep up the "simulation" aspect, but very few add to the fun (or to anything, really). You have stuff like hunger, that is just kinda there because it's not like you're gonna die of hunger in the few days you spend in the dungeon. I think I ate like 3 times in the entire game, and I might've been fine with 0. An economy that adds almost nothing to the game. A weight system that is outright painful to deal with (though still I think there is some merit to a system that prevents you from shoving everything to find into your bag, just not so strict please). And finally... realistic jump heights and arcs, except your character can't climb over stuff like a normal person, they can just jump. In a game that has platforming sections. So until you find the runes required to cast the fly spell, you're stuck with realistic 1992 first person platforming, which is as awful as it sounds. It was still a good game even now (and likely an incredible game for its time) and I think having that realism as a pillar of development must've led to the creation of many of its good aspects, but yeah. Some realistic ideas might not just not add fun, they might not add anything at all to a game.
sometimes the fun stuff helps with the realism because of abstractions - the jumping example you provided earlier with The Fun Of Movement is great for this usually because it lets you get to places you want (that even make realistic sense) rather than thrashing around trying to get on the right pixel. also regarding the inaccessible perch thing, this was why they let the guards in dishonored throw rocks at you to get you down somewhere they could engage
Speaking as a game developer focused mainly on simulation games. For me the distinction between "fun" and "realistic" is too vague and people are often not very articulate(could as simple as lack of time) when they complain about lack of realism. I find that often, when players complain about realism what they mean is that the game broke their immersion. Making something feel unrealistic is one of the easiest ways to do that and vice-versa. Ultimately in my opinion the goal of every game is to make the player feel something and if immersion is part of that feeling then realism is a good way to start.
In my mind, the primary purpose for realism is immersion, so it should be viewed through that lens. Immersion is subject to the overall feelnyoure trying to create, so to lose sight of that leads to poorer player experiences. But really, the only time ive been seriously bothered by unrealism is when it's something i can do in real life, especially when it comes to physical things like jumping and climbing. I'm a fairly athletic person, but im no olympic medalist. If i can make a jump in real life, it breaks my enjoyment and immersion when i cant do it in a game. What im trying to say is, we should always err on the side of exaggeration when possible.
I had that at my Shadowrun table once. I went: funny how it works. You accept as a premice that people are choping off limps to put implants to jumb higher, magic is back, so all magical creatures which the mere existences is an open challenge to any rules of physics, but obliviously you draw the line at anything that put your characters in danger.
People forget that it has never been fun versus realism, it was realistic because it made the game more fun. its a video game, the goal is to have fun, not to simulate already existing systems.
I can safely say there has been more than a few times I have been playing a game I really liked but just stopped and never finished when it stopped being fun. Conversely there are games I couldn't stop playing but never finished the main storyline because they are so much fun and I enjoy playing them and don't want to end it. It was like that with Cyberpunk 2077 I bought the game and didn't have any issues with the bugs but I went out and explored, did all of the side missions and got a ton of the good weapons and really leveled up the character. But then when I went to play the main story I just got bored and stopped playing and never finished it. I think the same with Skyrim I honestly can not remember if I have actually finished that game properly or not but anytime I go back to play just the main storyline I still get distracted and never end up following it. I think this is why having a linear game with fewer side missions or explorable areas can sometimes be so satisfying because I actually enjoy completing the game without being distracted.
On a slightly related note, on a 1-10 scale how much would you say game worlds violating/retconning their own rules/lore bothers you when playing through series? I find that unlike realism which I agree should always take a backseat to fun & a good story, when games violate their own fantasy rules it really bugs me & makes immersion very difficult. Maybe I'm just hypercritical of that aspect bc I'm a writer myself & I prioritize that but yea would love to hear your insight on the topic in general
I played a game where you could rob a store, then go back the next day and sell them their own merchandise. Some people find this fun, but I thought it was silly. So what am I supposed to do? Make a rule that I can't do that? That feels very artificial and takes away from my fun. If the devs fixed that "exploit," I would find that satisfying because it would both make the world feel more reactive and less artificial while also forcing me to adapt -- which is another source of fun. You could even say this creates gameplay pressures, because now I have to find a place to fence my goods rather than being able to immediately convert the store's goods into cash at the very store I robbed. The emergent quest to fence those goods becomes a motivation for me as a player, and that's satisfying gameplay. So my point is that sometimes I think you may actually be depriving some people of fun by not fixing exploits.
A variant on what you said, people like often realism when it reinforces their power fantasy in the game. They don't like it when it doesn't. I love it when I shoot an enemy once in Arma and they fall over dead. I hate it when I fall 2 feet and my character is injured and whines for the rest of the mission. I love being able to carry 60 tons of cobblestone in Minecraft, I hate it when my character starves to death. They love it when the rules align with how they want to play, hate it when it doesn't
still, after played the "fun version" for so long, you may enjoy (and get fun) with something more realistic and hardcore gameplay - but of course, fun is priority
Great video, Tim! Thank you for all the knowledge you've been sharing with us through your videos. I would like to know how you come up with the design pillars for a specific project. Is there a framework to help with that?
For me, I tend to think about how well mechanics fit into any particular style, with "realism" as one particular type of stylistic choice or theming, although one could argue that more surreal, comical, or less grounded theming can lead to more interesting and fun games overall. But there's a place for a realistic theme just as there is room for surreal games and for over the top, satirical games. The problem tends to show up when you have fantastical mechanics in a realistic game or overly realistic and restrictive mechanics in a fantastical game.
I think it really depends on the game itself and what the game is aiming to be. Like ironically enough games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld....Realisim is what brought me in. Graphics aside, knowing in RimWorld my little character got an infected leg and needed it amputated or they'd die of infection...was the reason I was playing. That layer of depth and realism struck me and felt good and added to the storytelling of the game! But not every game would that make sense in. If mario got hit by a turtle shell and then died of an infection in his leg at the 5th stage...wtf would that even be? Like I couldn't get behind it. So in part, it's about player expectation. Obviously, Mario has huge expectations in it, you can't make that game more realistic without burning the fans. And you don't need to, it's fun as is. But, a game like Rimworld.. has no expectations going in, and people are more willing to accept whatever is given, so the room to "up the level" of realism compared to other games is available without the deficit of failed expectations. But, also, the game itself revolved around the storytelling and emergent qualities of "realism" where in many games...that level of detail would only hinder the experience...and thus realism isn't a benchmark against fun or for it. It's just a thing that alters the experience. It can improve some games...and ruin others. It's about the game itself though.
I thought the realism mode in new vegas was one of the coolest things i'd ever encountered in a game. Having to be mindful of my inventory and assessing threats, viewing the wilderness as this dangerous place and keeping to civilization for the access to resources and healing all elevated the games appeal through the roof for me. My brother immediately ran off without a care in the world, got his leg broken and didn't know how to fix it, gave up on the character and the game for years. When I he told me about that experience I reminded him that you literally start the game at a doctor who can heal and fix your broken limbs, but he was too dumb to even find his way back to the place he came from. You can't make everyone happy lmao.
Hardcore mode in New Vegas is awesome. So much fun. Better experience and more balanced with it on (always use it). But it isnt realistic but oh so fun.
Having to watch your hunger and thirst in NV is quite satisfying and really makes the game way more immersive. I think Sawyer said they had to dumb it all down for the release though as most players don't really want it
When discussing tactical FPS games I often make the point that realism will often be uncomfortable and cumbersome to play, and what these games are actually going for is authenticity.
There is a way around when it comes to hit points. You can make very complex system that would be played approximately similar to how fallout is played - thus fun is still there. Obviously, DT, DR and HP is not enough. It should be like: you are targeting arm of a person in metal armor with 9mm. 9mm has, let's say level 2 of piercing capabilities. In this armor 33% is covered with grade 3 plate - thus, 33% 9mm will do no damage, 50% is level 2 (junctions and thin metal) - 50% that there is some distribution from 0 to half of maximum damage. 17% is not protected - thus, 17% full damage. If damage has gone through - there is a slight chance of critical that depends not only on luck but on damage that's gone through (chance of hitting the artery) Player does not need to calculate this as plain text might explain what happened. Consecutive shots to damaged limb will not take as many hp, because it is already destroyed and you can't kill creature/person targeting same limb over and over, unless you score critical and hit artery. Also different abilities might interact with base percentages in different ways. Hardcore players would know numbers, but nonhardcore would just play it intuitively. Also there might be skills that reveal what chances are to score which damage.
The gdc talk "30 reasons your game pitch sucks" has a slide called "in real life you can't double jump" and he talks about how he sees game pitches where stupid decisions are made because of what happens in real life. He said "unless you're making a super realistic game where that's really important, it doesn't matter what you can do in real life."
Working on training simulation apart from my game project, I can say that realism is sometimes not fun, but also tedious and harmful even for training. You sometimes need to do a few unrealistic things in order to reach your goal. Typically, shortening delays so that a training can be performed in the allotted time or you can reach place X or build item Y without having to wait forever.
Realism focused games certainly have their appeal, but I don't see people who make games where the main character has to interrupt what they're doing to go to the toilet outside of games that are all about that, or have a pooping mechanic for comedic effect Realism is definitely one of those standard things that people point to when they want to complain about something
Great game designers are capable of changing what realistic actually defines. They create new immersive universes to exist in, and players (humans) are very (very) good at immersing themselves into nearly any type of whacky universe, as long as that universe is consistent and interesting. Look at Minecraft. No sane player is going to complain about Minecraft being unrealistic, even though its natural terrain has perfect 90 degree angles. However, when it comes to judging realism in games, we are unfortunately heavily biased by their graphical style. If your game looks like Cyberpunk 2077, you're not going to be able to get away with nearly as much as you can with a custom artistic style of graphics. I'm not sure if this is something we've trained ourselves to do, but the bias is definitely there. Just by adding more vibrant colors to your game's appearance, you can change the realism threshold of what players will expect.
Thank you for the video! Another fun discussion! I don't think people give enough credit to the consistency property you mentioned. And not just with respect to rule application. One of the things that Arcanum help me appreciate is the commitment to both world building (e.g. the thorough exploration of what if an industrial revolution happened in a Tolkien-like fantasy world) and game mechanics (e.g. magic tech dichotomy). Thoroughly thinking through all the implications of a narrative or gameplay decision and presenting how it affects the world is an approach to "realism" or in my opinion (self-)consistency that not many games commit to. Your games are so special in that way! Thank you Tim! :)
When it comes to Fallout 2, player advancement is VERY MUCH determined by gear upgrades, not player upgrades. That's part of why I never finished the game.
By realism people often mean plausible. Is it plausible for you to unlock this chest in a first try ? (but you safescumed it) - yes. Is it plausible for you to go to some place (but you`ve skiped the annoying part by fasttravel) - yes. Is is plausible for all the people, who are not a commune and who didnt saw you, to know that it was you who stole the item and now they are trying to kill you - no, i dont think so.
Realism is one of those things that can add to an experience in a fun way, so long as you pick and choose. Cinematic "realism" probably works better for most games - in real life, you can't knock someone out for potentially tens of minutes without risking permanent brain damage, but in a stealth game, people want to be able to take out guards without killing them. On the other hand, guns having travel time and bullet drop adds challenge to long distance shots in a way that can be fun (there's a reason MGS weapons all use projectiles rather than hitscan). Likewise, locational damage can really add to the flavour in a way that hit points don't.
I don't know that it's as simple as "fun matters more than realism", when there are genres of games that DO pull a lot of inspiration from realistic frames of reference. Mechanics with realistic constraints that may not be "conventionally fun" can still be engaging, when they encourage working around limitations in novel ways. Putting "fun" on a high pedestal over all else, just kinda brushes aside, that what is fun is inherently different to each person and not easily generalizable. I do agree that realism just for its own sake often isn't worthwhile, but it has value, when applied in the right places. Solving problems with intuitive realistic reasoning is very rewarding, and helps with the believability of a game's world. Of course every game needs the player to have suspension of disbelief, but that doesn't mean you can't meet the player somewhere halfway. Sometimes the temporary frustration of realistic limitations is worth the reward of succeeding despite it, and making the most of what you've got to overcome seemingly overwhelming odds.
The developers of voxel-based games, especially, seem to be having an inordinate time with this. There's "realism" and then there's mind-numbing drudgery. Some developers are getting around the potential drudgery aspect of their survival games in novel ways while others are insisting that our real life-time be spent whittling down hit points on a cardboard box for the sake of "realism", for example, when it might actually come across as more realistic to allow the player simply to loot the container as they would loot any other container in the game. That kind of thing.
From a player stand point, I find that generally, believability serves games better than realism, with the exception of games that intend fun thru specific simulation, like some driving games or the Arma series. Concentrating on the suspension of disbelief over direct realism is usually a better stepping stone to more fun.
I think a good way of thinking about realism is more related to whether or not something is immersion breaking or not. All games by definition are unrealistic, because its not reality. But the goal of certain kinds of games is to give an immersive experience such that the player feels as if they are experiencing a type of reality similar to actual reality, but with the exceptions laid out by the game.
Realism taken too far is red dead redemption. The art and graphics were breath taking, incredible attention to detail but the game was such a chore to play. It was more of a simulator then a game for fun.
Imho, Bullet sponginess in games is not fun. If you need more than 2-3 axe blows to the face to down an opponent, your weapons feel like toys, which feels bad. I feel like level-related bullet sponginess is a bad habit disseminated by D&D.
I agree with this. Also, I think it would be more fun if you could sell items that you have stolen, without a buyer in some far away place inexplicably knowing that they were stolen. I think that when people complain that features are unrealistic, what they actually mean is that things can be unrealistic if that's more fun, but they shouldn't be unrealistic if that's less fun.
@C.S.Argudo I agree with @kescay. It is to implement easy, but not fun at all. Why not, instead of scaling the HP of single foes, add more foes instead? That way, your your greatsword or shotgun won't feel like toys and difficulty would still ramp up.
I am a bit more to the side of realism. But then again I have been playing autosim ever since my childhood and overcoming a difficult race, squeezing the required performance out of a car by modifying and tuning it, perfecting your driving skills - it is all fun for me and gives immense gratification once you finally pull that off. I've always seen RPGs and sim as a kind of similar genres based on immersion and realism is very important for me. I have played through fallout 3 and NV without using fast travel once and without running btw. I've only ran when I had to. I had around 500 hours on Fallout 3 iirc. And btw maybe it will sound silly and contrarian, but would a player really need to save scumming stealing and lockpicking if there was a way to properly sneak and if a failed attempt at those things did not make the owner/target and everyone around to attack you, but would result in a wanted warrant for your arrest, you would be forced to pay a fine and give up the stolen goods and / or be put to jail with an option to break out or just waste the time and have in-world consequences like temporary penalty to skills because you haven't been using those? This is why I have stopped playing as a thief after a while. Because a single skill check fail would mean that either I am dead, or the NPC is dead, or the whole town is trying to kill me now. Just not worth it if you want to play for realism and not break your immersion with save scumming. I would later begin to play Fallout 1&2 and Arcanum with permanent death and so stealing was really not worth the risk. In Arcanum though I was still able to even do some Thieve's Underground quests by just boinking NPC on the head with a magical staff causing high damage to fatigue and knocking them unconscious before stealing. And then I would run away and avoid them ever seeing me again. This is why I praise the game so much. But still. There were ways of making it realistic instead of saying 'eh, we will fix one unrealistic thing by adding more unrealistic things". But I fully understand that making this game was a no mean feat in and of itself given how much you have had to deal with and how little resources and people you have had working on it.
I agree with putting Fun first cause that's the main reason we play games. People who wants realism actually wants something that's fun for them instead.
When it comes to jumping, at least if you don't have a vaulting system, it kind of needs to be unrealistic to make your actual movement capabilities more realistic. As in most people would be able to get past a short wall even if they wouldn't be able to jump over it so if the game didn't allow them to get past it it would be unrealistic. That said I do agree that fun trumps realism.
Man if you don't have at least slightly unnatural jumping you have to have robust ledge catching/climbing mechanics. Unless you're pathologic 2. I honestly think jumping was included as a joke in that game. I mean when people jump in the real world to do stuff it's either to reach something above them, slightly out of reach, or they're actually taking a running leap. I had this inkling of an idea once where instead of having a jump button you'd have a context sensitive "athletics" button. Where it would depend on the button combination, environment and what you are doing as to what your character does.
"If it's not fun, why bother?" - Reggie Fils-Aime
"So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?"
th-cam.com/video/yGsHq-mZI8U/w-d-xo.html
And a speedo man
@@paklaselt2198 that one kid really loved the speedo man
@@alexpetrovich85 And that kid grew up to become Tim Cain.
@@deathsheadknight2137 😂🤣👍
For me, I like "realism" in games, but only when it serves the story. I like a little tedium in my games! If I'm playing an RPG and I'm about to go off and travel far and I know I won't be back to my base or house for a while, having to manage my inventory before I leave is fun. Planning out my journey is fun. Checking my map because I got lost is fun. Getting sick from some monster I fought along the way is fun. Because it's all these little things that add up to make the PLAYER'S story. The dev didn't plan out that journey for me, it just happened through all these little systems. But if I can fast travel to a place I've never been, if I can carry so much inventory crap that I don't have to do any planning, if I always have a marker on my map so I can't get lost... I dunno. It's not memorable. I like minor tedium, which often gets used synonymously with "realism."
Literally why I love Daggerfall
And if the game doesn't have a story, at least that isn't written by the player(s), if so desired?
7 Days to Die doesn't have a story...yet. I'm honestly not sure it should myself, all things considered. Something tells me the sandbox is what people are enjoying and will continue to enjoy playing in with or without their friends and with only their own imaginations to accompany them. A story, factions, etc. once implemented, would most likely be derivative and uninteresting by comparison. It's not a RPG. It's not even a survival game, afic, because surviving in it is not actually an issue. It's a romp through a postapocalyptic world.
Had the story come first; had that been the intention of the game from the start -- to tell a gripping story -- I could see it. But that wasn't the intention from the start and I have the uneasiest feeling that TFPs will be facing the kind of backlash Bethesda endured when a "story", if one can call it that, was plastered over the backstory, atmosphere and environmental storytelling that already existed in Fallout 76. "Adding NPCs" is pointless if those NPCs have nothing interesting to say. Green Hell's story mode is receiving similar criticism. "It's dull; it's predictable; it's uninteresting;" etc. Of course, it is. That wasn't the point of making the game.
Honestly, former English major or no, I find myself drifting to games that *aren't* RPGs or, more at, games that don't fancy themselves RPGs because I can allow my own imagination to run wild in them whereas I can't in the vast majority of modern RPGs.
Kindred.
Realism in games is underrated, it can be a springboard for player stories like that and it could give things a real sense of weight
Realism and fantasy to me are two different things
One thing I've passively chatted about with people is that players want believability, and not so much realism. If your game world has rules and you follow them, in both gameplay and story, it usually results in an immersive experience that's fun to play.
I've also found that many players enjoy the aspect of discovery and mystery, where many games these days will tell you exact numerical values for everything and remove any uncertainty around player strategy as well as any natural discovery of new strategies in favor of the numerical maximum.
Deliberately obfuscating information from the player gives them more incentive to engage with elements they otherwise would never touch.
Believability vs realism! My thoughts exactly too!
Really realism is just one tool in the toolbox of believability.
I live for these videos. Talking game design is literally my favourite conversation, when someone has the experience and passion to talk about it at this level, i get tingles.
get a more meaningful life
Not your place to determine what is meaningful for someone else. @@zerpblerd5966
@@zerpblerd5966 failed attempt at hating.
weakego@@H0VA
Unnaturally high/far jump distances basically *need* to be in just about all video games because they allow you to abstract out all the other ways besides jumping people have to get places, like brief climbs or pulling yourself up.
Funny thing is there is nothing unrealistic about the jump height in fallout 3, new vegas, Arcanun, Fallout 1, Fallout 2 etc.
Now how guns damage life is unrealistic but so fun in these games (tweaks needed for balance but not for realism)
@@fredrik3880not unrealistic in the sense of "impossible for a human", but the Fallout 3 protag, 18 years and only ever seen the Vault, has a standing jump of almost a meter, which is *a lot* for your average human
@@HeinerGunnar in what way is the lone wanderer average? Superhuman more like. But his jump is at best a little above average.
@@fredrik3880 they're an 18 year old kid without any type of athletic training. And his jump is professional athlete height. I want to see you jump a meter from a standstill. "a little more than average" my ass
It’s my humble opinion that immersion trumps both of these. I’d have to think more about it, but maybe there’s a Venn diagram of fun, realism and immersion with the marriage of the 3 being ideal. The games that come to mind are fallout new Vegas(hardcore mode), red dead redemption 2, and STALKER GAMMA. NV and RDR2 are some of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had, and while I’ve not played stalker gamma yet I’m in love with just about everything in it that I’ve seen. In stalker you drink vodka to remove radiation, it’s not realistic but it’s effective and has immersive elements. You’ll get drunk the more you drink and it adds challenge to playing, ideally you want proper meds to remove radiation and good equipment to avoid radiation when you have to encounter it. NV hardcore requires doctors bags for broken limbs, using them heals instantly which is unrealistic but more immersive than sticking a stimpacks in your leg via the pipboy even if they’re functionally identical. RDR2 had an animation for EVERYTHING you do which allows the game to reinforce that the experience is meant to slow you down and totally immerse you in the world. You can get shot in the head and it not kill you outright (sometimes) and eat beef jerky to recover. It’s not realistic but the gameplay informs the immersion. I’m really just spitballing here, and my examples might not be the best. But for me when I’m looking at games I’m looking for immersion more than anything, and the best immersive games are ALSO fun games, not just realistic.
Flight simulators can be highly immersive, but I wouldn't necessarily call them fun.
I kinda disagree - I consider both immersion and realism to be elements that can lead to fun.
How much, it depends on the type of player.
Although I should say "enjoyment", instead of "fun".
For example, I don't like the hardcore mode in New Vegas, it's not for me.
I'm not having fun while playing it.
If you prefer using it, it means you enjoy using it, you are having: fun.
That doesn't mean you are happy or cheerful all the time, but you 'are' entertained!
You probably would not play the game that way if you hated it, and it made you miserable.
Drinking alcohol to get rid of radiation in games from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series was a reference to advice distributed in USSR by order of the Politburo. This had a double effect. 1. People drank until they passed out out of fear - unconscious people complained less. 2. When people poisoned by alcohol felt sick and vomited the next day, they thought that it was either the alcohol's fault (even if the early effects of radiation resemble alcohol poisoning) or that the alcohol was helping their body get rid of harmful radiation. I remember that in Poland they tried to spread the same recommendation, but Poles are not that stupid. Moreover, there was a shortage of alcohol in stores because almost all production was taken by the USSR.
Realism can be a great opportunity to show creativity. Simulating reality in an engaging way can make a game all the more immersive. By the same token, breaking a bit from reality (but not too much) can work as well.
Fun & Realism aren't necessarily distinct from each other, what it comes down to, is what level of a difficult/frustrating time you're able to tolerate.
Tim is literally always going to be a voice of reason for Game Devs, love hearing the intricacies of Game Design
Plenty of really fun games like Project Zomboid have almost insane devotion to realism. A lot of the fun comes from having to treat the game world like you would in real life.
It seems to me that "fulfilling the fantasy" or "immersion" is probably the greatest factor as to what is fun in a game, not whether the individual mechanics are "realistic" or not.
I never cared for "realism", but from a world building point of view, a lack of consistency(without a reason) takes me out of a game. By all means, break your rules but at least give us some sort of reason why or make it mysterious or...something.
When authors/creators take time to consider all the various aspects of their world, those details and considerations provide very strong immersion, at least for me
Zomboid is a good example of delayed gratification. By intentionally not offering the most "fun" (convenient) solutions such as quicksaves, easier gunplay, easier to obtain and larger inventory, better enemy detection. The game is making it harder on the player, but over time more rewarding.
As someone who really has fun with certain amounts of obnoxious realism in game design, I really enjoyed your thoughts. It's made me think more about how my own "realistic" design choices should still strive for a layer of fun.
I believe there is a subtle yet very important distinction between a game being immersive and a game being realistic. And while they are both intertwined, it's important to understand that there is not a linear relationship between the two. I want a game to be immersive, I want to believe that the game world exists and that my character is one moving part within it. Realism can do a very good job of this, like changing NPC reactions to a wide variety of player actions, it does a lot to make things more believable. At the same time, realism can completely break one's immersion.
For example, playing RDR2 when you're searching a house for loot you have to open each and every drawer of a cupboard and pick up every individual item inside, all animations of which are done agonizingly slow. This is extremely realistic, to fault. This does not make me feel like I am a cowboy who is realizing that the everchanging world will pass him by if he doesn't change his ways, it makes me feel like a human playing a game with a life that will pass him by if he has to sit through another painful 30 seconds of useless animations.
I thought RS went overboard with that as well, but especially with things like Arthur simply taking a bath. Pick this limb; pick that limb; etc.? Uh, no. A cut scene or similar will be just fine there. Thank you. Searching drawers and such I didn't mind so much, but the linear campaign allongside the open world exploration was not exactly a marriage made in heaven, either Great, but flawed game.
I think another commenter down the line mentioned that it was great when applied appropriately, appropriate being the operative word. If I'm surrounded by zombies that may decide to stop twitching and head my way when I'm trying to search the trunk of a car, for example, I don't mind a timer being applied to simulate the time it might take to actually open that trunk and search it, but when such timers are applied to every single action performed, I tend to become impatient with them because, as you say, we have real lives to live here and, if the time spent performing an action in a video game feels wasted, it's because we're wasting our actual lifetimes and are all too keenly aware of it.
There are companies like Blizzard who try to dictate the "fun" in their games to the point that if players find a way to have fun in the game that wasn't designed, they'll patch it out. Just like a book is really just a text prompt that triggers a story to play out in the reader's mind, I think that the fun in games happens in the interaction between the game and the player. The designer allows the player to interact with the game in ways that are fun. As a player it feels inappropriate when the designer tries to micromanage the fun instead of simply facilitating it. In some RPGs you gain a level after every main questline quest while the side content gives practically no XP. The designer is trying to keep such a tight rein on player progress that I can practically taste the bit.
I miss games with responsive controls and unrealistic movements so much. I enjoyed RDR2, don't get me wrong, but it was such a frustrating experience.
I spent a lot of my time in that game screaming profanities at the screen when my character took 3 seconds to interact with something because he had to slowly adjust his position in order to start the animation. And what fun it is when you slam face-first into a corner five times in a row because Arthur has the turning angle of a sailboat.
I get they were going for realism but in real life I only have those problems on a Friday night.
mr. cain, I've always wanted to create a game, but never in my life have found good teachers. You are the only developer I've seen that is passionate and actually wanting the game development industry to grow, which hasn't really grown in the last decade(besides graphics). If you're willing to teach I'm willing to learn, and work for you.
I never liked it when games get too caught up on realism. I always thought the more important thing is 'believability'. It's not quite the same thing. If you establish the right setting and whatnot, then even the most unrealistic things can still be believable.
I think a danger of thinking of things in terms of "fun" is that it can lead to shortsightedness in many cases, and be a kind of juvenile way of thinking about overall enjoyment. It is like saying the best food is whatever tastes the sweetest. I wouldn't want just pure sugar as a meal, but also wouldn't find the bitterness of things like dark chocolate or coffee palatable without any.
Some of my favourite games are *not* fun, like TLOU, instead being more intense and stressful, but still enjoyable and memorable. Despite the absurdity of something like the zombie apocalypse scenario, the internal consistency of the game world becomes the foundation on which everything else is put into context and made believable.
This. I prefer thinking in terms of a game being enjoyable as opposed to "fun" for that very reason. There are a lot of games others think of as "fun" that I find all but utterly mindless and boring. If I can bring joy to a game and not have it rebuffed at every turn, chances are good I'm going to enjoy even a game that may have been universally panned by critics, players and, even, critics and players alike or, at least, find aspects of it to enjoy.
Yeah alot can be taken from the video because its so unspecific. The vid could say "dark souls should have an easy mode" because fun for the player (monkey brain).
But on the other side of the coin - you stand your ground, say no to the monkey brain and delay the gratification.
I find the appeal of realism is that players expectations are naturally "realistic". When I pick up a shotgun in a game I expect it to have some characteristic based on experience, it is not fun when I discover it is only effective out to 15 meters. You can have fun unrealistic rules in games, but you have to make sure the player is informed of these rules.
I always loved finding a safe spot a stronger enemy couldnt get to. Sure its cheesy to blast away at them from safety, but maybe instead of having the enemy come to you, they could run away if they take too much damage without being able to close to attack range.
This is definitely an interesting video because of how different peoples view of fun is, some people have more fun with realism, and some don't. I always prefer a good balance because I find both fun for different reasons. Always loving hearing from you tim!
my favorite parts of video games are when the player sleeps for 8 hours a day, gets ill, goes to the bathroom, and does taxes.
These days complaining about lack of realism has evolved into complaining about immersion-breaking. It's no longer about if it's realistic, it's if it sustains the illusion the game is presenting. And it's all encompassing to every aspect of the game, be it design, animation, graphics, UI etc etc.
Oh I’m so happy I found this video after watching dozens of your videos. This is a topic I very much want to see another’s take on
its all about internal consistency
A great example of Fun vs Realism, is when in valheim you had the ability to stun the enemies when they threw rocks at you, by blocking them with your shield, at any distance.
they took it out and they had to re add it, because it was fun, and still is.
The question is not Fun vs Realism; there are people who play hardcore simulators and find them fun. For example: DCS, MSFS, Ready or not, Arma 3, etc. They think reading a 200-page fighter jet manual or getting killed by a single bullet is fun. So the real question is Silly vs Serious. How silly or how serious do you want to go, because both have their player base. Things like bullet sponge enemies can be fun for some players, but for others, it is an immersion breaker.
One thing to mention is that realism doesn't necessarily equal immersion. For example, magic spells or sci-fi spaceships aren't real, but if they have a well-thought-out background and game lore, they can bring immersion to players. The idea I fully agree with in this video is the consistency of the rules. Regardless of whether it's silly or serious, those rules must remain constant throughout the game
Another fantastic video Tim! Love your insight!
I'm glad you mentioned movement first because it seems like, for at least a decade now, mainstream games have been trying way too hard to have "realistic" movement and it's one of the single biggest turn-offs for me.
Hopping around like a moron in Morrowind or TF2 is a lot more fun to me than seeing my character "realistically" lose their footing and stumble on a slope in what feels like any third-person game released since GTA V
If they haven't gone in the opposite direction. I think I might actually have enjoyed the first Star Wars game I've played in more than two decades a whole lot more if player movement in the game wasn't nearly 100% "parkour" and puzzles. Systems like that just feel way too "video gamey" for my taste to the point that I find it impossible to become immersed in them because I'm constantly having to think about the game's mechanics. That same game's "Souls-like" light saber combat, otoh, felt pretty natural.
Loved the realism of RDR 2. For some people it was a big letdown but for the majority not.
It immerse you more and make the world more tangable and interactive.
Thanks for all the videos, Tim!
I like listening to them as a podcast - most episodes don't need visuals, and they're nice to just listen to on a walk.
Maybe you could consider making it into a podcast, in case there's more people like that? :)
I still like some sort of logic to how things work even if its just a throw away line of text. It gives the unrealistic feeling some sort of grounded reality within the game world.
In my experience, when someone complains about something being unrealistic in a game, what they actually mean is that the behavior is unexpected in a bad way. That is, they expect something to happen and something else happens instead, and it throws them off.
Games that sport GURPS type realism is something I'd want as an option and not as a baked-in feature. I like that some RPGs have a Hardcore mode that put in a level of realism you can turn off and on if you want to. Some people like that sort of thing, and I like when a game gives me more freedom to play in ways I want to. It's why I like games with immersive sim qualities to them.
Totally agree with this.
Totally agree with this.
I was JUST talking about this in relation to Starfield!
I feel like the words I hear that come the most in regard to this topic are:
Realism, Consistency, Immersion, and Verisimilitude.
I think they're all sort of red herrings for what the player (and designer) actually want.
Of course, everyone wants the game to be fun, but the thing that really hurts fun the most is when you get knocked out of the flow of playing.
When a game pulls you in and you're focused on what you're doing, then all of a sudden the illusion breaks because an assumption the player had was wrong.
So really, I think what we're fighting against is the dissonance between the players' assumptions, the designers' intentions, and the game's simulation.
So for a game to feel "realistic" is a misguided notion if the game is not "XYZ simulator 20XX".
And instead focus on how to get the simulation to (as silently as possible) communicate and guide the players' assumptions to maintain Consistency/Immersion/Verisimilitude.
An interesting application of this that violates the "fun principle" I think is like when Tim discussed maintaining what your game is NOT.
Fallout does NOT have terminator robots. They might be fun to have, but they aren't consistent with the setting.
You wouldn't necessarily break most players' immersion by adding them, but when the setting is alternate 50's retro future, adding terminators silently undermines that theme and muddies the players' assumptions. Maybe? That's my take on it at least.
The "fun vs. realism" balance must be among the most difficult to get right, if the developer even can, because what does and doesn't "break immersion" for one player may not for another. A good rule of thumb for RPGs, I would think, can be borrowed from literature: the suspension of disbelief. Break the suspension of disbelief in a RPG and you've broken immersion.
Tim mentioned logical consistency and I think, perhaps, that's the number one element to get right. Break the logic of the world or universe you've created, especially on a whim, and brains will notice. So, while he says fun *trumps* realism, what I gather he means is that playing around with the physics and so forth of a video game is acceptable as long as it enhances the fun factor. Fallout 76's Marsupial mutation might be an excellent example. As long as the writers have come up with a reason for that "mutation" to be in the game, it's probably golden whereas, if a reason is not provided, it may not be. I gather that's why Tim and crew put so much research into what was going on at Mariposa military base: to try and keep the suspension of disbelief intact.
Oddly enough, too much "realism" (real-time day/night cycles; "realistic" resource gathering mechanics, etc.) actually break immersion for me. Honestly, I think that's much of the reason why I personally have such a hard time getting into any of the "survival" games. (Aside from the fact that most are nearly 100% procedurally generated and, therefore, gameplay feels robotic, that is.) It's not because they can't be fun. Obviously, an awful lot of people are having fun with them, if not certain elements of them, but because most of the actions the player performs *feel* unnatural -- not "unrealistic," but unnatural -- my brain is screaming that this or that just isn't right. A good example might be slowing what otherwise would *feel* like perfectly natural movement to a crawl in an effort to make the player think they're having a harder time of it when their brain is saying the real life action doesn't feel that way. Upping the vehicle speeds in one game with which I'm familiar by only a *single* point resolved that feeling of "unnatural" movement for me. It didn't make the vehicles zip across the world map or anything like that, but when I had my avatar hop on a virtual bicycle, for example, I no longer felt he was moving in super slow motion.
Starfield like all other games is unrealistic. That is not the problem with it. The fact it isnt fun (trash story, horrible gameplay, uninteresting npcs, way worse atmosphere then previous bethesda games etc etc). Seriously Starfield is such let down i cant even grasp that this is what bethesda has become. An absolute travesty.
@@fredrik3880 It isn't objectively a fact that it isn't fun. It's just not fun for you apparently. Honestly, it just feels like Oblivion to me, albeit slightly more disjointed.
I don't know how previous BGS games are suddenly being put on a pedestal when every single one has been claimed to have been a disappointment compared to the last one.
The biggest differences with this one are it doesn't have 20+ years of IP history to gloss over everything nor the buffer of fantasy to keep it away from realism criticisms.
@@simulacrumgames oblivion is almost 20 years old. Now id be disappointed if Starfield was the same as a 20 year old game. Despite a much large team, strides in tech and knowledge that is what bethesda could do after all this time? Tread water for 20 years? But Starfield is much much much worse than oblivion. It is just absurd how they have produced that trash.
@@fredrik3880 The state of Starfield is perfectly understandable. Their tools really don't seem to have evolved that much. They're still in basically the same engine. What they've done is increase scope (breadth) and sacrificed complexity (depth).
The game is far from "trash" but I think they did miss the mark of a complete BGS experience.
IMO it looks like they almost completely focused on implementing a framework for mods to stand tall on.
In that regard, its probably a successful project (we'll see what kind of improvements they made to modding next year it sounds like), but not really a successful/coherent BGS game.
Definitely does feel like a reflection of AAA titles as of late, what with cyberpunk doing a complete overhaul on core gameplay systems and such.
It's almost like these games need a 10-12 year dev cycle, but they need to recoup their costs around the 8 year mark 😂
I generally agree with you - fun should always trump realism. However, I do think that realism - or the illusion of it - can give us a deeper experience. And sometimes being more fun can coincide with being more realistic - or at least more believable.
I mean, I'd much rather have the gunplay of Half-Life 2 or the hack 'n slash mechanics of Blade of Darkness and Devil May Cry, rather than the gunplay of Receiver or the hack 'n slash of Hellish Quart and Dark Souls. Also, the more realistic you make your mechanics, the more realistic you need to make everything else - graphical fidelity, animations... And then you start to come up to the limitations of the hardware and the fact that our digital inputs aren't a good way of interacting with a realistic system to begin with (e.g. when firing a gun looks 100% realistic, my brain is going to be pulled out of the experience if there also isn't any recoil when I fire).
Instead, what I think designers looking for realism should focus on is making the mechanics feel realistic, rather than actually trying to make them realistic. E.g. does Devil May Cry have a more realistic combat system compared to Dark Souls, Hellish Quart or Sifu? As someone with over 18 years of experience in martial arts, most of which is in weapons-based systems, I would argue that yes - Devil May Cry feels way more realistic than Dark Souls.
Even though its combat system is flashy and over-the-top, it relies on being proactive and acting on instinct. As you're playing it, it actually comes really close to making you feel like you're in an actual fight. Meanwhile, Dark Souls just feels like drunk people fighting. Its emphasis on dodges and parries means that every enemy needs to telegraph their moves from a mile away, and the emphasis on difficulty also means that your attacks execution needs to be delayed. This makes it look and feel like you're a bunch if beginners who have no idea what they're doing :D
Now, I'm not saying that Dark Souls is a bad game. Even though I'm not a fan, there's a very good reason its combat system is the way it is. I'm just saying that due to its focus on challenge, it doesn't feel or look believable. It works for Dark Souls, because the game never set out to be believable. But it doesn't work for me, because I mainly play games to feel stuff :D
You could say that Enemy sponges are unrealistic but same applies if you say: enemy sponges are not fun. So there is pretty much no difference with this example. Pretty neat video, thanks!
I think one of my favorite odd things I've seen. Is when someone tries to make a game just ultra realistic to the point where it is cumbersome and frustrating to use compared to real life. And that then becomes fun because it's a goofy level of difficult.
It's a both 'and/or' for me.
I like "Realism" to make up the borders and foundation of the sandbox. But not necessarily what goes on in the sandbox.
Fx, the "Puddle of Death" AKA 'Protag steps one foot in a body of water and instantly dies.' That's not fun or realistic.
Then on the other hand we have other games where the Protag _can_ swim. With a full set of powered armor on, effectively making them a bi-pedal tank, plus an extra 150 lb of random loot and weaponry in their inventory. Not realistic either, and silly at best.
But it's usually one or the other. And I'd much prefer a bit of realism there.
Like, you can swim, but _not_ in full heavy armor.
It's a too often overlooked concept that could help diversify character builds and add to light or no armor sneak-thief builds and take a little away from the "all-purpose tank."
It's the same as the 'Higher Jump.' It's only more fun if you actually land again. At the moment, most water encounters in FP-RPGs are equivalent to just flying whenever you jump.
Just my personal two cents.
Thank you for this Tim! I love being able to hear about your experience and how it relates to game design.
OMG. This is exactly how I feel.
I think this video has the best lighting yet
One interesting thing in regards to realism is that people don't necessarily prefer something that is truly realistic. They prefer things to match their perception of realism, which is often entirely different from what is actually realistic.
The Long Dark has lots of issues and lots of potential but the #1 thing that had me turn off playing it after about 10 hours way way way way way way back was
no jumping
it's supposed to be super-realistic, but, there's no jump
it feels like a stranglehold on the player
Great points! I think it also depends on genre to some extent--I certainly don't expect realism in a Pokemon game or KOTOR, while R6Siege went downhill over the years as they abandoned realism. One interesting thing I read many years back was a game designer discussing a Vietnam War FPS they were working on said that they had a goal of making the game authentic but not realistic. The distinction was that the uniforms, vehicles, weapons, et cetera would be authentic to the time period but the scenarios and combat would focus on being fun for the player rather than being a realistic portrayal of combat during the Vietnam War. That sounds like a fair and meaningful distinction; it also makes me wonder--similar to your thoughts on randomness--when people say they want realism, do they really just want authenticity?
a rule I have with games is that if I have to think about how high my numbers are compared to other characters, then I'm not gonna enjoy my time spent.
I dislike it when games forces me to play a certain way. For example, removing the option to save because the devs don't want the player to savescum. Or not being able to toggle off hardcore mode, etc. If people want a game to be a certain way, then it's easier for them to play it like that. If they want a hardcore mode, then they can just delete the savefile when their character dies. Don't have it the other way around because there's no option to pick if so.
I love that after I watched your video about design pillars I went to rework a gdd I'm writing up to include them. Very helpful. Now I'm watching this video and it makes me feel like I'm the right track when you mention putting "Fun trumps realism" as the first design pillar for The Outer World when the first pillar I came up with for my game is "Balance is good but fun is better".
Not exactly the same but I believe it's the same gist. I dunno. Would love to hear your thoughts on my phrasing and help validate for me if it's a solid design pillar. The concept is still very new to me and I'm only really starting me video game dev journey with this. I've done a nice handful of tabletop games, enough to make me feel like an accomplished game designer despite never really actually publishing any of them (not overly bothered about the financial profit side of making games but I am trying to fix that for the sake of building a career).
Either way, thank you so much for your insightful videos. I've been gradually getting through them recently and I find you quite inspiring. Anyway, thank you also if you happen to take the time to read this, even more so if you respond. Regards.
I play GURPS (4th edition). I find managing the risk of the death spiral and one-hit-kill weapons to be really fun and hit points in D&D to be comparatively flat, particularly 5th edition at high levels. This kind of thing probably plays better at the table than it did in your prototype, though. In the world of computer games, the GURPS ruleset seems a better fit for a roguelike, where much of your character advancement is expected to come from equipment and learning the game, instead of grinding up to a higher pool of hit-points.
All that being said, there are a number of ways 4th edition can enable the "hero shrugging off blows" trope. The one that I think would work best for a computer game is wildcard points. If you got injured while using a wildcard skill, you can spend a wildcard point to turn the hit into a glancing blow.
I watched a GDC video where a publisher gave his 10 tips for your game pitch and he had to say that realism isn't really a relevant metric unless you are pitching a game that has a specific purpose for it e.g. physics simulation game.
I think what matters instead of realism is believability, the sense that the balance of things is relevant to the game. A cartoony game where if you shoot one body part or another it doesn't affect damage versus something like sniper elite where its graphics and subject matter is more realistic so the damage is too. In that case realism is just one contextual tool inside of the toolbox of believability.
Love this approach! Ragdolls are fun, I hope they never get too realistic :D
The only circumstance where I care about realism is either when it's part of a central mechanic (eg: Food availability is low, therefore food locations should be primarily in kitchens), or if the game explicitly states something then the game should be realistically consistent (eg: in the local culture, eating in one's bedroom is a social norm. Therefore, bedrooms are a good secondary source of food)
Essentially, I only care about realism if it directly affects my ability to not fail at the game. So long as I'm not dying to an arbitrarily essential game mechanic because that mechanic is so random as to be unpredictable, I'm good
meanwhile AAA studios: here's a stamina bar that depletes if you turn around too fast because we saw stamina was a thing in a souls game.
Question: what are your opinions on making a game that appeals to a broad audience vs a targeted narrower audience? Back when street fighter 4 came out me and a friend of mine, who plays competitively, were having this discussion about whether it was better for them to simplify the controls to appeal to a broader audience at the expense of disappointing the core audience. I feel this was a consideration the later fallout games have had too.
They added an option for simplified controls for Street Fighter 6, increasing accessibility. Most of the core audience ignores it, while a vocal minority complains. SF6 has high retention for a fighting game.
I think Realism should be implemented as long as it doesn't DETRACT from the fun. Realism is good only when it makes the game MORE interesting and MORE fun.
I just finished Ultima Underworld for the first time and this was on my mind the whole time. So many systems in that game are realistic to keep up the "simulation" aspect, but very few add to the fun (or to anything, really). You have stuff like hunger, that is just kinda there because it's not like you're gonna die of hunger in the few days you spend in the dungeon. I think I ate like 3 times in the entire game, and I might've been fine with 0. An economy that adds almost nothing to the game. A weight system that is outright painful to deal with (though still I think there is some merit to a system that prevents you from shoving everything to find into your bag, just not so strict please). And finally... realistic jump heights and arcs, except your character can't climb over stuff like a normal person, they can just jump. In a game that has platforming sections. So until you find the runes required to cast the fly spell, you're stuck with realistic 1992 first person platforming, which is as awful as it sounds.
It was still a good game even now (and likely an incredible game for its time) and I think having that realism as a pillar of development must've led to the creation of many of its good aspects, but yeah. Some realistic ideas might not just not add fun, they might not add anything at all to a game.
sometimes the fun stuff helps with the realism because of abstractions - the jumping example you provided earlier with The Fun Of Movement is great for this usually because it lets you get to places you want (that even make realistic sense) rather than thrashing around trying to get on the right pixel. also regarding the inaccessible perch thing, this was why they let the guards in dishonored throw rocks at you to get you down somewhere they could engage
Speaking as a game developer focused mainly on simulation games.
For me the distinction between "fun" and "realistic" is too vague and people are often not very articulate(could as simple as lack of time) when they complain about lack of realism.
I find that often, when players complain about realism what they mean is that the game broke their immersion. Making something feel unrealistic is one of the easiest ways to do that and vice-versa.
Ultimately in my opinion the goal of every game is to make the player feel something and if immersion is part of that feeling then realism is a good way to start.
Tim: "i dont really care about realism" Also Tim: *spent i believe he said weeks on researching for FEV, gets praised by a professional in the field*
In my mind, the primary purpose for realism is immersion, so it should be viewed through that lens. Immersion is subject to the overall feelnyoure trying to create, so to lose sight of that leads to poorer player experiences.
But really, the only time ive been seriously bothered by unrealism is when it's something i can do in real life, especially when it comes to physical things like jumping and climbing. I'm a fairly athletic person, but im no olympic medalist. If i can make a jump in real life, it breaks my enjoyment and immersion when i cant do it in a game.
What im trying to say is, we should always err on the side of exaggeration when possible.
I don't care if a game is realistic. But I do like it to be believable.
I had that at my Shadowrun table once. I went: funny how it works. You accept as a premice that people are choping off limps to put implants to jumb higher, magic is back, so all magical creatures which the mere existences is an open challenge to any rules of physics, but obliviously you draw the line at anything that put your characters in danger.
People forget that it has never been fun versus realism, it was realistic because it made the game more fun.
its a video game, the goal is to have fun, not to simulate already existing systems.
I can safely say there has been more than a few times I have been playing a game I really liked but just stopped and never finished when it stopped being fun. Conversely there are games I couldn't stop playing but never finished the main storyline because they are so much fun and I enjoy playing them and don't want to end it.
It was like that with Cyberpunk 2077 I bought the game and didn't have any issues with the bugs but I went out and explored, did all of the side missions and got a ton of the good weapons and really leveled up the character. But then when I went to play the main story I just got bored and stopped playing and never finished it. I think the same with Skyrim I honestly can not remember if I have actually finished that game properly or not but anytime I go back to play just the main storyline I still get distracted and never end up following it.
I think this is why having a linear game with fewer side missions or explorable areas can sometimes be so satisfying because I actually enjoy completing the game without being distracted.
On a slightly related note, on a 1-10 scale how much would you say game worlds violating/retconning their own rules/lore bothers you when playing through series? I find that unlike realism which I agree should always take a backseat to fun & a good story, when games violate their own fantasy rules it really bugs me & makes immersion very difficult. Maybe I'm just hypercritical of that aspect bc I'm a writer myself & I prioritize that but yea would love to hear your insight on the topic in general
Fantasy & Rules being used together kinda redefines what "Fantasy" even means, but of course that would make the Fantasy genre a paradox of meaning.
It's all about those FUNdamentals!
I played a game where you could rob a store, then go back the next day and sell them their own merchandise. Some people find this fun, but I thought it was silly. So what am I supposed to do? Make a rule that I can't do that? That feels very artificial and takes away from my fun.
If the devs fixed that "exploit," I would find that satisfying because it would both make the world feel more reactive and less artificial while also forcing me to adapt -- which is another source of fun. You could even say this creates gameplay pressures, because now I have to find a place to fence my goods rather than being able to immediately convert the store's goods into cash at the very store I robbed. The emergent quest to fence those goods becomes a motivation for me as a player, and that's satisfying gameplay.
So my point is that sometimes I think you may actually be depriving some people of fun by not fixing exploits.
A variant on what you said, people like often realism when it reinforces their power fantasy in the game. They don't like it when it doesn't. I love it when I shoot an enemy once in Arma and they fall over dead. I hate it when I fall 2 feet and my character is injured and whines for the rest of the mission. I love being able to carry 60 tons of cobblestone in Minecraft, I hate it when my character starves to death. They love it when the rules align with how they want to play, hate it when it doesn't
still, after played the "fun version" for so long, you may enjoy (and get fun) with something more realistic and hardcore gameplay - but of course, fun is priority
Great video, Tim! Thank you for all the knowledge you've been sharing with us through your videos. I would like to know how you come up with the design pillars for a specific project. Is there a framework to help with that?
For me, I tend to think about how well mechanics fit into any particular style, with "realism" as one particular type of stylistic choice or theming, although one could argue that more surreal, comical, or less grounded theming can lead to more interesting and fun games overall. But there's a place for a realistic theme just as there is room for surreal games and for over the top, satirical games. The problem tends to show up when you have fantastical mechanics in a realistic game or overly realistic and restrictive mechanics in a fantastical game.
I think it really depends on the game itself and what the game is aiming to be.
Like ironically enough games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld....Realisim is what brought me in. Graphics aside, knowing in RimWorld my little character got an infected leg and needed it amputated or they'd die of infection...was the reason I was playing. That layer of depth and realism struck me and felt good and added to the storytelling of the game!
But not every game would that make sense in. If mario got hit by a turtle shell and then died of an infection in his leg at the 5th stage...wtf would that even be? Like I couldn't get behind it.
So in part, it's about player expectation. Obviously, Mario has huge expectations in it, you can't make that game more realistic without burning the fans. And you don't need to, it's fun as is.
But, a game like Rimworld..
has no expectations going in, and people are more willing to accept whatever is given, so the room to "up the level" of realism compared to other games is available without the deficit of failed expectations. But, also, the game itself revolved around the storytelling and emergent qualities of "realism" where in many games...that level of detail would only hinder the experience...and thus realism isn't a benchmark against fun or for it. It's just a thing that alters the experience. It can improve some games...and ruin others. It's about the game itself though.
I thought the realism mode in new vegas was one of the coolest things i'd ever encountered in a game. Having to be mindful of my inventory and assessing threats, viewing the wilderness as this dangerous place and keeping to civilization for the access to resources and healing all elevated the games appeal through the roof for me.
My brother immediately ran off without a care in the world, got his leg broken and didn't know how to fix it, gave up on the character and the game for years. When I he told me about that experience I reminded him that you literally start the game at a doctor who can heal and fix your broken limbs, but he was too dumb to even find his way back to the place he came from.
You can't make everyone happy lmao.
Hardcore mode in New Vegas is awesome. So much fun. Better experience and more balanced with it on (always use it). But it isnt realistic but oh so fun.
Having to watch your hunger and thirst in NV is quite satisfying and really makes the game way more immersive. I think Sawyer said they had to dumb it all down for the release though as most players don't really want it
@@elobiretv it felt like good rpg mechanics but it was not to frequent
When discussing tactical FPS games I often make the point that realism will often be uncomfortable and cumbersome to play, and what these games are actually going for is authenticity.
💯 agree with this video
But in Arcanum, NPCs did not know whether the item was stolen or not. You could sell them stolen item's right away...
High lethality combat can work fine, if you put the focus on tactical gameplay.
There is a way around when it comes to hit points.
You can make very complex system that would be played approximately similar to how fallout is played - thus fun is still there.
Obviously, DT, DR and HP is not enough. It should be like: you are targeting arm of a person in metal armor with 9mm. 9mm has, let's say level 2 of piercing capabilities. In this armor 33% is covered with grade 3 plate - thus, 33% 9mm will do no damage, 50% is level 2 (junctions and thin metal) - 50% that there is some distribution from 0 to half of maximum damage. 17% is not protected - thus, 17% full damage. If damage has gone through - there is a slight chance of critical that depends not only on luck but on damage that's gone through (chance of hitting the artery)
Player does not need to calculate this as plain text might explain what happened.
Consecutive shots to damaged limb will not take as many hp, because it is already destroyed and you can't kill creature/person targeting same limb over and over, unless you score critical and hit artery.
Also different abilities might interact with base percentages in different ways. Hardcore players would know numbers, but nonhardcore would just play it intuitively. Also there might be skills that reveal what chances are to score which damage.
Tim, what did Fallout end up using? (It’s been a while) also, great video! As always!
They lost the GURPS license so they wrote their own system.
The gdc talk "30 reasons your game pitch sucks" has a slide called "in real life you can't double jump" and he talks about how he sees game pitches where stupid decisions are made because of what happens in real life.
He said "unless you're making a super realistic game where that's really important, it doesn't matter what you can do in real life."
Working on training simulation apart from my game project, I can say that realism is sometimes not fun, but also tedious and harmful even for training. You sometimes need to do a few unrealistic things in order to reach your goal. Typically, shortening delays so that a training can be performed in the allotted time or you can reach place X or build item Y without having to wait forever.
Realism focused games certainly have their appeal, but I don't see people who make games where the main character has to interrupt what they're doing to go to the toilet outside of games that are all about that, or have a pooping mechanic for comedic effect
Realism is definitely one of those standard things that people point to when they want to complain about something
Great game designers are capable of changing what realistic actually defines. They create new immersive universes to exist in, and players (humans) are very (very) good at immersing themselves into nearly any type of whacky universe, as long as that universe is consistent and interesting. Look at Minecraft. No sane player is going to complain about Minecraft being unrealistic, even though its natural terrain has perfect 90 degree angles. However, when it comes to judging realism in games, we are unfortunately heavily biased by their graphical style. If your game looks like Cyberpunk 2077, you're not going to be able to get away with nearly as much as you can with a custom artistic style of graphics. I'm not sure if this is something we've trained ourselves to do, but the bias is definitely there. Just by adding more vibrant colors to your game's appearance, you can change the realism threshold of what players will expect.
Thank you for the video! Another fun discussion!
I don't think people give enough credit to the consistency property you mentioned. And not just with respect to rule application. One of the things that Arcanum help me appreciate is the commitment to both world building (e.g. the thorough exploration of what if an industrial revolution happened in a Tolkien-like fantasy world) and game mechanics (e.g. magic tech dichotomy). Thoroughly thinking through all the implications of a narrative or gameplay decision and presenting how it affects the world is an approach to "realism" or in my opinion (self-)consistency that not many games commit to.
Your games are so special in that way!
Thank you Tim! :)
When it comes to Fallout 2, player advancement is VERY MUCH determined by gear upgrades, not player upgrades. That's part of why I never finished the game.
By realism people often mean plausible. Is it plausible for you to unlock this chest in a first try ? (but you safescumed it) - yes. Is it plausible for you to go to some place (but you`ve skiped the annoying part by fasttravel) - yes. Is is plausible for all the people, who are not a commune and who didnt saw you, to know that it was you who stole the item and now they are trying to kill you - no, i dont think so.
Realism is one of those things that can add to an experience in a fun way, so long as you pick and choose. Cinematic "realism" probably works better for most games - in real life, you can't knock someone out for potentially tens of minutes without risking permanent brain damage, but in a stealth game, people want to be able to take out guards without killing them. On the other hand, guns having travel time and bullet drop adds challenge to long distance shots in a way that can be fun (there's a reason MGS weapons all use projectiles rather than hitscan). Likewise, locational damage can really add to the flavour in a way that hit points don't.
Fun 100% of the time. If you want realism, go outside.
I don't know that it's as simple as "fun matters more than realism", when there are genres of games that DO pull a lot of inspiration from realistic frames of reference. Mechanics with realistic constraints that may not be "conventionally fun" can still be engaging, when they encourage working around limitations in novel ways.
Putting "fun" on a high pedestal over all else, just kinda brushes aside, that what is fun is inherently different to each person and not easily generalizable. I do agree that realism just for its own sake often isn't worthwhile, but it has value, when applied in the right places. Solving problems with intuitive realistic reasoning is very rewarding, and helps with the believability of a game's world. Of course every game needs the player to have suspension of disbelief, but that doesn't mean you can't meet the player somewhere halfway.
Sometimes the temporary frustration of realistic limitations is worth the reward of succeeding despite it, and making the most of what you've got to overcome seemingly overwhelming odds.
The developers of voxel-based games, especially, seem to be having an inordinate time with this. There's "realism" and then there's mind-numbing drudgery. Some developers are getting around the potential drudgery aspect of their survival games in novel ways while others are insisting that our real life-time be spent whittling down hit points on a cardboard box for the sake of "realism", for example, when it might actually come across as more realistic to allow the player simply to loot the container as they would loot any other container in the game. That kind of thing.
From a player stand point, I find that generally, believability serves games better than realism, with the exception of games that intend fun thru specific simulation, like some driving games or the Arma series. Concentrating on the suspension of disbelief over direct realism is usually a better stepping stone to more fun.
I think a good way of thinking about realism is more related to whether or not something is immersion breaking or not. All games by definition are unrealistic, because its not reality. But the goal of certain kinds of games is to give an immersive experience such that the player feels as if they are experiencing a type of reality similar to actual reality, but with the exceptions laid out by the game.
Agreed. If you want realism then go outside. Games are for fun
Cyberpunk 2020 is built on realism while cyberpunk red Leans way more towards fun
Realism taken too far is red dead redemption. The art and graphics were breath taking, incredible attention to detail but the game was such a chore to play. It was more of a simulator then a game for fun.
Imho, Bullet sponginess in games is not fun. If you need more than 2-3 axe blows to the face to down an opponent, your weapons feel like toys, which feels bad. I feel like level-related bullet sponginess is a bad habit disseminated by D&D.
I agree with this. Also, I think it would be more fun if you could sell items that you have stolen, without a buyer in some far away place inexplicably knowing that they were stolen.
I think that when people complain that features are unrealistic, what they actually mean is that things can be unrealistic if that's more fun, but they shouldn't be unrealistic if that's less fun.
I mean bullet sponginess is a great way to do level scaling if you're doing a map with areas that have different difficulties
@@C.S.Argudo Increasing the enemy HP is easy, sure, but if it doesn't result in more fun, I wouldn't say it's great.
@C.S.Argudo I agree with @kescay. It is to implement easy, but not fun at all. Why not, instead of scaling the HP of single foes, add more foes instead? That way, your your greatsword or shotgun won't feel like toys and difficulty would still ramp up.
I am a bit more to the side of realism. But then again I have been playing autosim ever since my childhood and overcoming a difficult race, squeezing the required performance out of a car by modifying and tuning it, perfecting your driving skills - it is all fun for me and gives immense gratification once you finally pull that off. I've always seen RPGs and sim as a kind of similar genres based on immersion and realism is very important for me. I have played through fallout 3 and NV without using fast travel once and without running btw. I've only ran when I had to. I had around 500 hours on Fallout 3 iirc.
And btw maybe it will sound silly and contrarian, but would a player really need to save scumming stealing and lockpicking if there was a way to properly sneak and if a failed attempt at those things did not make the owner/target and everyone around to attack you, but would result in a wanted warrant for your arrest, you would be forced to pay a fine and give up the stolen goods and / or be put to jail with an option to break out or just waste the time and have in-world consequences like temporary penalty to skills because you haven't been using those? This is why I have stopped playing as a thief after a while. Because a single skill check fail would mean that either I am dead, or the NPC is dead, or the whole town is trying to kill me now. Just not worth it if you want to play for realism and not break your immersion with save scumming. I would later begin to play Fallout 1&2 and Arcanum with permanent death and so stealing was really not worth the risk. In Arcanum though I was still able to even do some Thieve's Underground quests by just boinking NPC on the head with a magical staff causing high damage to fatigue and knocking them unconscious before stealing. And then I would run away and avoid them ever seeing me again. This is why I praise the game so much. But still. There were ways of making it realistic instead of saying 'eh, we will fix one unrealistic thing by adding more unrealistic things". But I fully understand that making this game was a no mean feat in and of itself given how much you have had to deal with and how little resources and people you have had working on it.
I agree with putting Fun first cause that's the main reason we play games. People who wants realism actually wants something that's fun for them instead.
One doesn't exclude the other. Tarkov's fun, for example, lies in its realistic and hardcore aspects.
When it comes to jumping, at least if you don't have a vaulting system, it kind of needs to be unrealistic to make your actual movement capabilities more realistic. As in most people would be able to get past a short wall even if they wouldn't be able to jump over it so if the game didn't allow them to get past it it would be unrealistic.
That said I do agree that fun trumps realism.
Man if you don't have at least slightly unnatural jumping you have to have robust ledge catching/climbing mechanics. Unless you're pathologic 2. I honestly think jumping was included as a joke in that game.
I mean when people jump in the real world to do stuff it's either to reach something above them, slightly out of reach, or they're actually taking a running leap. I had this inkling of an idea once where instead of having a jump button you'd have a context sensitive "athletics" button. Where it would depend on the button combination, environment and what you are doing as to what your character does.