I think there are 2 different conversations going on here. People choose games for different reasons at different points in their life, and is dependant on the genre of game you like to play. Skill based games, and knowledge based games have a very different approach and is more to do with whether you are a general or soldier mentality, or mixed. Skill based games are more about in the moment, hands on (soldier minded) type games that require you to be hands on and in the process directly. This requires skill and immediate knowledge of surroundings and how to use them to your advantage to achieve a goal. Quick thinking and reactions required. Generals are about knowledge and strategy, more than the hands on. You study your troops, champs, kit, supplies etc. and formulate a plan of attack, by building champs, collecting supplies, gear etc, build your team, army, city etc, and then you set it into action and watch the result like god surveying the little bugs it created with dispassion for the countless lives being extinguished in a rts or wave based game for instance. Some people walk away and come back later to see what happened, others' will watch it evolve before them. You can take notes, adjust balance, order etc this is the fine tuning. Eventually, you have done all the fine tuning you can do (min/max) and then it's on auto, you tick the done box and is forgotten promptly about because you have a new challenge to master, conquer, overcome etc. For the hands on experience (soldier), I have found that gameplay, graphics, and sound are very important. I want to feel that I'm there playing, so I require the emersion, feedback visually, auditory, and even a physical reaction through a controller when on a console. For strategy, or knowledge based games (general) then those things matter less than the complexity of the gameplay, or the complete opposite where if I want to play a game casually, then I want a simple game to set it, and forget it. Come back some time whenever and collect my rewards or hit retry. Rinse and repeat. I chose the latter games when rl gets busy. I'm from a rpg's and mmo background, so I want both. I want to be immersed first-hand, with decent graphics, flashy cut scenes, and do all the slash and hack, but I also want to build a champ, play a role, get involved with the storyline etc. Doing the grind is partly knowledge based but with the end result in creating a character that I know I have to use with skill to progress the story/content further. Community these days is even more important to both types of players/play styles than ever, but it's not necessarily to do with the game itself, or even the need to play together in the game, and more to do with connecting to others through a medium that automatically gives you a common entry point to start a conversation, the game itself is simply the conduit. The socially awkward as well as the social butterflies are equally attracted to this because the social butterfly will talk to anyone, and the socially awkward can hide at home behind a keyboard and has control of communicating, or not, according to how they feel. A game that has a community/clan/guild etc and some community activities are a standard these days, but the core game must still be 100% solo playable, except battle royal et al type games ofc, with the ability to join up with others in a rpg/mmo/rts/wave genre but not be forced to do so to complete certain aspects of the game for those who, for whatever reason, just want to be the lone wolf achieving everything by themselves, or having a main that is community based, and a solo build to go it alone, which I always do personally. PvP, if included, should never be linked to the PvE in any way. In this, Raid is the worst game ever and the two are becoming ever more PvE - PvP intertwined and I personally hate it. I like PvP in games, but I want it as a side content choice separate from the core game, not forcing me to do it so I can improve my PvE experience, and worse to actively block you from doing the PvE content until you complete PvP missions. Ultimately, simple games are usually flash in the pan games that get super popular for a short time, then vanish just as quickly, and these games are brain dead, but with a high fun factor that occupies yourself briefly but then one day you stop and never think of it again. Roblox was one of the very few breakthrough games but for every Roblox success there are thousands of failures that never saw the light of day. Highly complex games that also have low to medium difficulty to play, and they are different things, is key to a great game in today's world. Raid has depth and complexity to master it, but it is easy to play. It also adds that collector element so gamblers and collectors are attracted to it. The complexity draws the Saph's (he will always be Saph to me lol) and Brad's of this world to spreadsheet and mathematically breakdown every mechanic/champ in the game, as well as the casual player who want to auto battle/farm, watch YT vids on what champs to build for x content and run auto on their phone while at work, or doing rl stuff. What broke them through was a combination of being the first to use modern day (then) graphics to match the power of the modern mobile phone, and COVID. A great marketing strategy, and the science of addiction sealed the deal and it is still and will be king for some time yet, even with the abusive relationship it has with the player base. That's my 2 cents worth as they say
This was a great watch!! Thanks guys, I can't wait for Godforge! Love seeing Chisgule there too as an old RoK (RoC) player but now a Raid player!! Epic!! I definetly get drawn to a game if the graphics are good, as an artist, I love seeing the creativity of visual designs of games. Gameplay has to then be fun and complex for me to then stay long term.
What a very interesting and thought provoking conversation. Also - 51:35 - you get it. Older generations or generations with that mind set refuse to understand from that perspective. Not everyone can connect so easily face to face - and that's ok. The internet and online games and such have given many an avenue to connect in a way that they never could before.
Also the feeling of achievement. Building up to something and finally getting there. And being able to do this gradually and basically constantly, if the games continues getting updates.
The whole pipeline is super interesting: 1. How do I get tons of people to download and try my game? 2. How do I get a good percent of the folks who try it to keep playing for a week to a month, to the point where they are solidly now playing my game? 3. How do I get a good percent of people who are solidly playing to stick around for 5-10 years?
Again I would add that community is hard when you're a female gamer - you either have to let people assume your a guy (which they always do) or "come out" as a woman and then many of the interactions change.
i played koa and guns of glory for many many many years. The simplicty of the movements of the game isn't simple at all, there is alot of risk, planning, strategy. There is also alot of unknown variables, and one of the biggest thing is community, you can have a clan and you all are like family and talk irl, and then there is another clan that opposes you and it's almost like we can have a peace, or we can fight you. Sometimes you make a fake peace to catch them off guard and farm countless resources. It's soo advanced it seems simple but it really isn't, and all of the emotions and comradery or villanery of the game is what brings it to that next level
Pausing about 29mins in, I think it sounds like they're getting at manual play vs auto. But here's the thing, I personally think that the gameplay matters very much however just the first playthrough. Or after you've made a significant change to a team say to test new things. But after you've seen it and know exactly what's gonna happen then that's when it becomes irrelevant and auto or a skip feature is more appealing. That's the balance you're looking for. The animations and controlling each move is fun and engaging just not when repeated a million times lol. Like I wouldn't want to watch campaign cutscenes everytime I wanted to farm it but for the first time playing yes absolutely. Edit: after finishing I believe that it's the evolution of the game. The first "gameplay" is the story, the graphics, what let's you decide if you like the game or not. Those do matter. Then once you've seen those the "gameplay" evolves into building and collecting champs, interacting with the community things such as that. So I would argue that the gameplay does matter. If you dont initially like the game you're probably not going to reach the point of where it evolves into the rest. Then the gameplay is completely different it's more about the systems so it's basically about retention at the point. What brought you to the game vs what keeps you there. Both are important. If that makes any sense.
I enjoy the collecting of the champs and the gear and having people chat with. I think having a strong Content creator core is important. Without Hellhades, Deadwood Jedi etc I would probably still not be playing RAID. I want to get the gear and champs, but want to have others to help learn how to put it all together. That is where the content creators come in. In Collection games I want high end graphics. I love the different skins that RAID empolyees.
You can't blanket statement this stuff, for some games graphics are critical, others its more about the mechanics etc. Just about any game can be fun regardless of the things you've talked about, but what is important when making a game is identifying what may be missing in your Genre and capitalizing. Like with most things in life, there is no blanket answer to this, it requires research and insight in the market to see what will attract the most players.
For me King Arthur is a good example where I think Gameplay matters MOST than anything else. (for me) I didn't like it at all at first. The graphics were kinda bad in the starting battles and the base builder style was meh and felt "cheap" and it wasn't til the boss fights that I actually appreciated the graphics. The story was slow, and poorly done. So my initial thoughts were not good. However, once I got into the REAL gameplay - the interesting boss fights, looking at hero skills and relic options, the weather effecting battle, etc. THAT is when the game grew on me. But if it wasn't for the gameplay feeling creative and fun, I would have stopped after the first week trial.
Chisgule was talking at a different level than the hots! too bad they stayed on the surface instead of diving into what special guest was trying to present
The mechanics of chess are different based on the piece. The gameplay isn't just picking up the piece and moving it. Your decisions are limited to what options you have based on where your pieces are. This guy sounds like he doesn't know chess. Checkers would have been a better example if you want to have few mechanics/gameplay.
No, I'm familiar with him. He knows chess pretty well. I think you're confusing what he's calling gameplay. He's saying gameplay is the actual thing you do, i.e. moving a piece from one spot to another. There is a small-to-medium amount of rules you have to know, i.e. which pieces move how, en passant, castling, check, checkmate, etc... There is a huge amount of background knowledge and strategy that takes place. But the actual thing you are doing, picking up a piece and then putting it back down, or perhaps pushing it across a board, is incredibly simple. You could say that someone doesn't know much about basketball, but is still a great player, because they have a great jumper and are super-athletic. On the flip side, you could have a seventy year old coach who knows the game inside and out and can tell you exactly what needs to be done in every moment, but they can't themselves do it because they can't physically execute the thing that they know. The ability to execute is different from the ability to know what needs to be executed. You couldn't, however, say that someone doesn't know much about chess, but is a great player. Because knowing what to execute is the game, the actual act of doing the thing you know to do, is not really part of it. Similarly in RAID, other than perhaps lacking self-control when it comes to Shard pulls, or not having enough time, no one says, "I know exactly how to build a champion perfectly. I just can't seem to manage to do it, because I can't push the keystrokes in the right order or timing." The hard part isn't the doing, it's the knowing. In a FPS though, there is a lot of knowing involved, but often the hardest part is the doing, and one might regularly say, "man, I had perfect position and I just couldn't get the head shot as fast as the other guy"
Please don’t listen to this guy. Collecting everything is not the best part of these games. The part of collecting that is great is for example getting the Duchess and the Trunda and then building and using them to destroy content. Collecting is just the byproduct and who cares if they collect all the crappy hero’s like Warmother. Getting and building hero’s can be fun but it’s the gameplay of synchronizing the team and defeating bosses that is fun. I find the low level boss fights in King Arthur are so much better than Raid and that this is the new baseline. I also think the investment in complex game knowledge is fine as long as we have ccs and a playerbase who is willing to learn and pass on the knowledge. Another fun and great thing about games is the exploits and using champs in unintended ways for unprecedented results. Unkillable teams in clanboss were unexpected and this spurred websites and made ccs like Deadwood. Old school clanboss was fun and challenging. Autocomplete can take away gameplay like the systems in Eternal Evolution and it is why people don’t play it. Good luck if take the advice of crap graphics and spreadsheet gameplay as it will make you just another cow in the herd of bad gatcha games.
Games are never "one size fits all". People play for different reasons and based on how much time you are going to dedicate to a game. I can love to play a game but not have enough "game knowledge" to truly excel. I want a game that I can play and love without being "the best" at something. I RARELY want to do a google search to research a skill just to get better. Since I'm just getting back into heavy gaming, I will be a sponge with Godforge and will really want to be on it from the start. I play RAID and I'm slowly learning and just rely on HellHades to get by on building my characters. I can enjoy both but I'll love a game the more I invest my time into learning. I am dying for the Godforge beta and spend my energy 90% here.
CHECK OUT CHISGULE GAMING:
youtube.com/@chisgule
youtube.com/@chisguleplays
Thanks for having me on the podcast!! This was a fun topic for sure.
congrats chis you learned a lot thanks for sharing these thoughts so on point
I literally started watching your content on AOEM a few weeks back 😂 great to see you in here
I think there are 2 different conversations going on here. People choose games for different reasons at different points in their life, and is dependant on the genre of game you like to play. Skill based games, and knowledge based games have a very different approach and is more to do with whether you are a general or soldier mentality, or mixed. Skill based games are more about in the moment, hands on (soldier minded) type games that require you to be hands on and in the process directly. This requires skill and immediate knowledge of surroundings and how to use them to your advantage to achieve a goal. Quick thinking and reactions required. Generals are about knowledge and strategy, more than the hands on. You study your troops, champs, kit, supplies etc. and formulate a plan of attack, by building champs, collecting supplies, gear etc, build your team, army, city etc, and then you set it into action and watch the result like god surveying the little bugs it created with dispassion for the countless lives being extinguished in a rts or wave based game for instance. Some people walk away and come back later to see what happened, others' will watch it evolve before them. You can take notes, adjust balance, order etc this is the fine tuning. Eventually, you have done all the fine tuning you can do (min/max) and then it's on auto, you tick the done box and is forgotten promptly about because you have a new challenge to master, conquer, overcome etc.
For the hands on experience (soldier), I have found that gameplay, graphics, and sound are very important. I want to feel that I'm there playing, so I require the emersion, feedback visually, auditory, and even a physical reaction through a controller when on a console. For strategy, or knowledge based games (general) then those things matter less than the complexity of the gameplay, or the complete opposite where if I want to play a game casually, then I want a simple game to set it, and forget it. Come back some time whenever and collect my rewards or hit retry. Rinse and repeat. I chose the latter games when rl gets busy.
I'm from a rpg's and mmo background, so I want both. I want to be immersed first-hand, with decent graphics, flashy cut scenes, and do all the slash and hack, but I also want to build a champ, play a role, get involved with the storyline etc. Doing the grind is partly knowledge based but with the end result in creating a character that I know I have to use with skill to progress the story/content further.
Community these days is even more important to both types of players/play styles than ever, but it's not necessarily to do with the game itself, or even the need to play together in the game, and more to do with connecting to others through a medium that automatically gives you a common entry point to start a conversation, the game itself is simply the conduit. The socially awkward as well as the social butterflies are equally attracted to this because the social butterfly will talk to anyone, and the socially awkward can hide at home behind a keyboard and has control of communicating, or not, according to how they feel.
A game that has a community/clan/guild etc and some community activities are a standard these days, but the core game must still be 100% solo playable, except battle royal et al type games ofc, with the ability to join up with others in a rpg/mmo/rts/wave genre but not be forced to do so to complete certain aspects of the game for those who, for whatever reason, just want to be the lone wolf achieving everything by themselves, or having a main that is community based, and a solo build to go it alone, which I always do personally.
PvP, if included, should never be linked to the PvE in any way. In this, Raid is the worst game ever and the two are becoming ever more PvE - PvP intertwined and I personally hate it. I like PvP in games, but I want it as a side content choice separate from the core game, not forcing me to do it so I can improve my PvE experience, and worse to actively block you from doing the PvE content until you complete PvP missions.
Ultimately, simple games are usually flash in the pan games that get super popular for a short time, then vanish just as quickly, and these games are brain dead, but with a high fun factor that occupies yourself briefly but then one day you stop and never think of it again. Roblox was one of the very few breakthrough games but for every Roblox success there are thousands of failures that never saw the light of day. Highly complex games that also have low to medium difficulty to play, and they are different things, is key to a great game in today's world. Raid has depth and complexity to master it, but it is easy to play. It also adds that collector element so gamblers and collectors are attracted to it. The complexity draws the Saph's (he will always be Saph to me lol) and Brad's of this world to spreadsheet and mathematically breakdown every mechanic/champ in the game, as well as the casual player who want to auto battle/farm, watch YT vids on what champs to build for x content and run auto on their phone while at work, or doing rl stuff. What broke them through was a combination of being the first to use modern day (then) graphics to match the power of the modern mobile phone, and COVID. A great marketing strategy, and the science of addiction sealed the deal and it is still and will be king for some time yet, even with the abusive relationship it has with the player base. That's my 2 cents worth as they say
This was a great watch!! Thanks guys, I can't wait for Godforge! Love seeing Chisgule there too as an old RoK (RoC) player but now a Raid player!! Epic!! I definetly get drawn to a game if the graphics are good, as an artist, I love seeing the creativity of visual designs of games. Gameplay has to then be fun and complex for me to then stay long term.
What a very interesting and thought provoking conversation. Also - 51:35 - you get it. Older generations or generations with that mind set refuse to understand from that perspective. Not everyone can connect so easily face to face - and that's ok. The internet and online games and such have given many an avenue to connect in a way that they never could before.
Also the feeling of achievement. Building up to something and finally getting there. And being able to do this gradually and basically constantly, if the games continues getting updates.
The whole pipeline is super interesting:
1. How do I get tons of people to download and try my game?
2. How do I get a good percent of the folks who try it to keep playing for a week to a month, to the point where they are solidly now playing my game?
3. How do I get a good percent of people who are solidly playing to stick around for 5-10 years?
Again I would add that community is hard when you're a female gamer - you either have to let people assume your a guy (which they always do) or "come out" as a woman and then many of the interactions change.
How can your game development make that visible...including you not always using terms like guys to describe your audience
i played koa and guns of glory for many many many years. The simplicty of the movements of the game isn't simple at all, there is alot of risk, planning, strategy. There is also alot of unknown variables, and one of the biggest thing is community, you can have a clan and you all are like family and talk irl, and then there is another clan that opposes you and it's almost like we can have a peace, or we can fight you. Sometimes you make a fake peace to catch them off guard and farm countless resources. It's soo advanced it seems simple but it really isn't, and all of the emotions and comradery or villanery of the game is what brings it to that next level
Absolutly love this metadiscussion
Pausing about 29mins in, I think it sounds like they're getting at manual play vs auto. But here's the thing, I personally think that the gameplay matters very much however just the first playthrough. Or after you've made a significant change to a team say to test new things. But after you've seen it and know exactly what's gonna happen then that's when it becomes irrelevant and auto or a skip feature is more appealing. That's the balance you're looking for. The animations and controlling each move is fun and engaging just not when repeated a million times lol. Like I wouldn't want to watch campaign cutscenes everytime I wanted to farm it but for the first time playing yes absolutely.
Edit: after finishing I believe that it's the evolution of the game. The first "gameplay" is the story, the graphics, what let's you decide if you like the game or not. Those do matter. Then once you've seen those the "gameplay" evolves into building and collecting champs, interacting with the community things such as that. So I would argue that the gameplay does matter. If you dont initially like the game you're probably not going to reach the point of where it evolves into the rest. Then the gameplay is completely different it's more about the systems so it's basically about retention at the point. What brought you to the game vs what keeps you there. Both are important. If that makes any sense.
I enjoy the collecting of the champs and the gear and having people chat with. I think having a strong Content creator core is important. Without Hellhades, Deadwood Jedi etc I would probably still not be playing RAID. I want to get the gear and champs, but want to have others to help learn how to put it all together. That is where the content creators come in. In Collection games I want high end graphics. I love the different skins that RAID empolyees.
For me I prefer gameplay that rewards knowledge and skill over graphics and gameplay based on randomness.
You can't blanket statement this stuff, for some games graphics are critical, others its more about the mechanics etc. Just about any game can be fun regardless of the things you've talked about, but what is important when making a game is identifying what may be missing in your Genre and capitalizing.
Like with most things in life, there is no blanket answer to this, it requires research and insight in the market to see what will attract the most players.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating today!
For me King Arthur is a good example where I think Gameplay matters MOST than anything else. (for me)
I didn't like it at all at first. The graphics were kinda bad in the starting battles and the base builder style was meh and felt "cheap" and it wasn't til the boss fights that I actually appreciated the graphics. The story was slow, and poorly done. So my initial thoughts were not good. However, once I got into the REAL gameplay - the interesting boss fights, looking at hero skills and relic options, the weather effecting battle, etc. THAT is when the game grew on me. But if it wasn't for the gameplay feeling creative and fun, I would have stopped after the first week trial.
Is there an approx. date when the game will release?
I am extremely curious and excited to try out the game, applied for beta testing.
Q3 of 2025 is targeted release
@@Mathurian So almost a year. Thanks G
Chisgule was talking at a different level than the hots! too bad they stayed on the surface instead of diving into what special guest was trying to present
The mechanics of chess are different based on the piece. The gameplay isn't just picking up the piece and moving it. Your decisions are limited to what options you have based on where your pieces are. This guy sounds like he doesn't know chess. Checkers would have been a better example if you want to have few mechanics/gameplay.
No, I'm familiar with him. He knows chess pretty well. I think you're confusing what he's calling gameplay.
He's saying gameplay is the actual thing you do, i.e. moving a piece from one spot to another.
There is a small-to-medium amount of rules you have to know, i.e. which pieces move how, en passant, castling, check, checkmate, etc...
There is a huge amount of background knowledge and strategy that takes place.
But the actual thing you are doing, picking up a piece and then putting it back down, or perhaps pushing it across a board, is incredibly simple.
You could say that someone doesn't know much about basketball, but is still a great player, because they have a great jumper and are super-athletic. On the flip side, you could have a seventy year old coach who knows the game inside and out and can tell you exactly what needs to be done in every moment, but they can't themselves do it because they can't physically execute the thing that they know. The ability to execute is different from the ability to know what needs to be executed.
You couldn't, however, say that someone doesn't know much about chess, but is a great player. Because knowing what to execute is the game, the actual act of doing the thing you know to do, is not really part of it.
Similarly in RAID, other than perhaps lacking self-control when it comes to Shard pulls, or not having enough time, no one says, "I know exactly how to build a champion perfectly. I just can't seem to manage to do it, because I can't push the keystrokes in the right order or timing." The hard part isn't the doing, it's the knowing.
In a FPS though, there is a lot of knowing involved, but often the hardest part is the doing, and one might regularly say, "man, I had perfect position and I just couldn't get the head shot as fast as the other guy"
Please don’t listen to this guy. Collecting everything is not the best part of these games. The part of collecting that is great is for example getting the Duchess and the Trunda and then building and using them to destroy content. Collecting is just the byproduct and who cares if they collect all the crappy hero’s like Warmother. Getting and building hero’s can be fun but it’s the gameplay of synchronizing the team and defeating bosses that is fun. I find the low level boss fights in King Arthur are so much better than Raid and that this is the new baseline. I also think the investment in complex game knowledge is fine as long as we have ccs and a playerbase who is willing to learn and pass on the knowledge. Another fun and great thing about games is the exploits and using champs in unintended ways for unprecedented results. Unkillable teams in clanboss were unexpected and this spurred websites and made ccs like Deadwood. Old school clanboss was fun and challenging. Autocomplete can take away gameplay like the systems in Eternal Evolution and it is why people don’t play it. Good luck if take the advice of crap graphics and spreadsheet gameplay as it will make you just another cow in the herd of bad gatcha games.
Fake Games? Hero Wars anyone?
Games are never "one size fits all". People play for different reasons and based on how much time you are going to dedicate to a game. I can love to play a game but not have enough "game knowledge" to truly excel. I want a game that I can play and love without being "the best" at something. I RARELY want to do a google search to research a skill just to get better. Since I'm just getting back into heavy gaming, I will be a sponge with Godforge and will really want to be on it from the start. I play RAID and I'm slowly learning and just rely on HellHades to get by on building my characters. I can enjoy both but I'll love a game the more I invest my time into learning. I am dying for the Godforge beta and spend my energy 90% here.