Illusion of failure (Destiny)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Sunday, November 08, 2015, 12:41 (3398 days ago) @ Cody Miller

It's the skinner box + social interaction that keeps you coming back.

I find that what Luke Smith says is true, to an extent. It is more memorable because of the ups and downs. Unfortunately for me, it's a game, a place I come to escape my troubles. So at times the downs come at a time when I need an up. More often than not it's a very enjoyable experience though. Which is why I keep coming back. =)

But you can't really have those ups if downs aren't possible. I mean right? If you can't actually lose, what does winning even mean? If after 9 games you just went to the lighthouse regardless of the outcome, would that be meaningful?

Back a long time ago in a game design debate on HBO, Narcogen said the perfect game would be the one where you are always almost failing, but come out on top. So the illusion of failure. But if you can't really fail, then winning means nothing. He was and still is wrong.

I think you may have either misunderstood or misinterpreted me. Frankly I agree that high points are meaningless in the absence of lows, and that wins are meaningless without losses. If anything, though, what I always wanted was the possibility of non-death failure states without creating a regressive difficulty curve. That may be impractical or even impossible to implement, though. Destiny has addressed this, like other games have, by altering the death failure state, by allowing for certain specific limited revival mechanics.

With regard to the illusion of failure:

Challenges that beat you only through surprise-- because you don't and can't know what's coming-- are a common but cheap tactic. Monster closets, enemies that teleport behind the player, etc. They increase difficulty artificially and reduce gameplay to a loop of advancing to the next surprise, learning the pattern, and then waiting to be killed by the next surprise. Lots of games include such loops and execute them with varying degrees of competency, but I think there's something hollow about games that depend on them too much.

What I suggested was an encounter design that COULD be, but most likely WOULD NOT BE solved the first time through. Sort of like a mystery story where you never quite guess what the solution is, but upon it being revealed, you realize that it was obvious. The best difficulty curve, then, would be one in which the broadest portion of players would not immediately win, nor would progress be so difficult that they would quit; the ideal experience for the leading edge of the skill curve would be constantly almost, but not quite, failing. Not the illusion of failure but the constant presence of the possibility of failure without resorting to cheap tricks.

I think about Hunters in Halo 1. It's a simple trick you need to learn, but it would be false to call the threat an illusion. If you observe the weak point and exploit it, and execute that exploitation, you will win, and win repeatably and reliably. But the threat is not false-- if you fail to execute, you will die, and die in a way that seems fair-- because you failed to execute what you knew you needed to do.

Unlike, say, pouring thousands of projectiles into a massive enemy until you die because a timer expires, or being killed by something you did not and could not have seen in advance because in your first time in an encounter there is no way to anticipate where the enemy will attack from. That's why I think teleports and even monster closets are cheap, and dropships are generally preferable.