Successful failure?
There's been a fair amount of discussion going on about failure in games, starting with an article over at Terra Nova asking why we don't have failure in our games. Damion Schubert then penned a followup entry in his blog.
I figured I'd say a bit about the topic as well, since I've already expressed an opinion on the topic in the comments of the Terra Nova article above.
In my Terra Nova comment, I referred to a comment I made in response to Jeff Freeman on his blog about a minor point in the whole IGE discussion. In the Terra Nova comments, I mentioned that the whole attitude of "having the magic sword is more fun than earning the magic sword" really hurts our chance to have meaningful failure in games. Unless there's some mechanism for earning the sword, it's hard to have a failure condition where you can't have the sword. Of course, most games have very simple success conditions ("Kill pigs until I say stop."), so the only real failure condition is if the player gets frustrated and walks away. I end my comment pondering if meaningful failure might be a way to make otherwise boring and rote quests a bit more fun.
In his article, Damion takes exception to the idea that players have been babied too much. He lists out reasons why failure isn't as much fun in online game. I'll have to agree that his reasons also contribute to the reasons why meaningful failure isn't part of online games.
But, I'll say it: games have gotten easier over time. The original MUD was permadeath and open PvP. You could die at almost any time and lose your character permanently. Admittedly, the game wasn't focused on accumulating rare gear, but there was still some time investment there. If we want to bring this to a more modern era, compare the consequences of death on Meridian 59 with that on WoW. Of course you laugh when you die in an instance in WoW, because there's almost no consequence save a run back to your point of death and a bit of cash to fix your equipment. Imagine trying that with M59's system for death (full inventory drop which will disappear in about 6 minutes or likely be looted by someone else in less, plus a small loss of skill points). Even single-player games are easier; most games I played as a kid had no save games, which meant I had to complete the whole thing in one sitting, and that sometimes required a dozen or more hours. Yet, these days we have people complaining that save points are an outdated and unfun system and that real games should allow you to save anywhere. I'm not saying we should require players to hammer nails through their genitals in order to truly "enjoy" the game, but you have to admit games have gotten easier since the time when we were little troublemakers playing in front of the computer and/or TV. And, truth be told, I'm glad that games have gotten easier. Yet, there's still room for a good amount of difficulty and failure in our games.
Now, difficulty and failure really go hand-in-hand. You can't really "fail" in death in WoW. The absolute worst that can happen is that you have to take some extra time because you need to head back to town to repair equipment. Otherwise, you're ready to go a short time later. In M59, if you don't get back fast enough you could be out some equipment. Now, there's not really much "rare" equipment in M59, so you can generally recover pretty quickly. But there are times when you have a lot of items on you and it's not a good idea to let it all go to waste. You can "fail" in death if you lose all your items, even if the failure is really just a longer "down time" in the grand scheme of things.
On the other hand, death has always been more exciting in M59. There was the tense moment when I thought I might lose a good amount of gold that I had saved up in order to buy more spells. My pulse was racing as I ran back to where I died, and I felt clever in finding a fast path back to my point of death. Many other players have told similar tales. On the other hand, when a player is unable to get back to his or her corpse in time, or gets back to find it picked clean, it can cause intense feelings of frustration. You feel upset at the game for cheating you, or at other players for looting your items and running away.
But, you don't get these feeling when there's little consequence, neither the good nor the bad. You can't feel the exhilaration of a partially luck, partially skillful save. You don't get your heart pounding when there's nothing on the line. You don't feel the crushing weight of defeat, but you also never feel the thrill of victory, either. It may sound cliché, but it's true: without the real possibility of failure there can be no success.
So, the trick is: how do we introduce real failure into our games but still make it fun? Taking the sting out of failure just makes success that much less meaningful. One possibility is to make the risks of failure more apparent while reducing the possibility of failure. Let me give an example that's probably more tailored toward single-player games than online RPGS: Say you have a friendly but gameplay-neutral NPC. When you go to fight the dragon the NPC rushes forward ahead of the group and gets toasted by flames. The player sees that the dragon can breathe deadly flames, sees the failure but doesn't experience it. An observant player might notice that the dragon spreads his wings before breathing flames and can thus avoid the dragon breath with a bit of observation. This allows the player to know that failure is possible, but gives the player the opportunity to avoid this failure. How to do this in an online RPG is left as an exercise for the reader. ;)
Of course, just re-introducing the possibility for failure can also change things. What if the player can fail a quest? I'm not talking about silly time limits, but what if a meaningful choice that can lead to failure? For example, maybe you've been hired to kill enemies of the kingdom, but you stop to help a wounded civilian from the enemy side. Perhaps the king gets word of this and decides not to reward you? Of course, there needs to be some benefit to helping the wounded civilian, otherwise the player feels cheated for doing "the good thing" in the game.
It's also important to consider what the market will support, however. Even though newer games have all but eliminated the possibility for failure and taken most of the "sting" out of what little failure remains, the market seems to not have a problem with this. People are still buying the games, and each game with simplified mechanics sells better than the previous game. Sure, the players might complain about shallow gameplay and how the game doesn't keep them interested, but if they continue paying there's no reason not to copy this formula. So, perhaps all this discussion of meaningful failure is moot.
Some fuel for thought. Comments welcomed.
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You make some good points here. Back when I was playing EverCrack, I mean EverQuest, there was definitely some chance of failure. At least I felt it. My character never got much higher than level 16 or so and there were some areas where I knew I just shouldn't go. I remember entering Lesser Faydark once as a very low level character and got lost. I then was killed by some major orcs there (at least they seemed major to my low level elf) and I couldn't find my corpse. Also, it was deadly for me to go retrieve my corpse. It added a sense of tension to the game for me that made it a more real world. I was more of a soloist so I hated that I then had to go find someone to help me get my corpse back (although because there are options, I suppose it's really not failure at all, just longer downtime).
Comment by Kevin Mandeville — 4 March, 2005 @ 9:36 AM
Of course the games and MUDs are a lot easier than they used to be. That's because we previously were insane people, and were only making games back then for other insane people. Since then, we've managed to broaden the market quite a bit, and a lot of it has to do with the genre as a whole getting a better idea of what is good risk/reward ratios.
You suggest that WoW has a slap on the wrist penalty because all you lose is time, perhaps a little gold to repair your stuff. Again, that's a MUD-centric way of thinking. If you're playing Doom 3, there is no 5 minute walk to retrieve your corpse. There is no trying to get back to your party-mates after a resurrection. You just hit F5, and you're back to right before the risky part. So if Doom 3 takes 5 seconds to reload, WoW's death penalty is 6000% as harsh as Doom 3's. In an efficiency-minded world that values time above all else, this is an incredibly frustrating event, hardly the slap on the wrist you describe.
Sure, raising the stakes raises the tension level. It also reduces your desires to take risks. In the old games (and I include M59 in that), it was absolute folly to attack something that might kill you, or go into a dangerous place. This is especially true in a PK environment, where you could be blindsided midfight. The end result is that players take fewer risks, and the game feels more like a grind as a result.
Comment by Damion Schubert — 4 March, 2005 @ 10:31 AM
Whoops, fixed the link to Damion's blog entry above. Sorry about that, I put the trackback URL in there by mistake.
Damion, you said in your entry that you didn't believe game players have been "coddled". Games have gotten easier, so I claim they have been coddled. I don't necessarily believe this is a bad thing, but we can't claim that this isn't a significant change in games and that we shouldn't examine this with the critical eye of the game designer.
I also think it's folly to compare online RPGs to traditional games, especially FPS games as you have, Damion. The only time you have a 5 minute walk anywhere is if you decide to backtrack through a level for some reason. Otherwise you have a few second walk from one monster (or monster swarm) location to the next. FPS games don't have to worry about having a coherent world, persistent cumulative characters, travel time, grouping mechanics, or anything. If someone wants fast action perhaps that player is better served by playing a FPS instead of an online RPG. That's probably not the response you want to hear as someone that works at a large online RPG dev studio, of course.
I also think the "efficiency" argument is a red herring. If I were worried about "wasting" five minutes of time, I certainly wouldn't be playing a game. In my opinion, there are plenty of meaningful activities people could be doing instead of sitting in front of a computer for a few hours every night. (I try to volunteer for at least one charity event per year, myself, usually volunteering at the local MS bike ride with my GF.) No matter how much importance we try to give to "virtual worlds", in the end these are still games.
Finally, I think you have things a bit backwards. With enough player skill I can kill practically anything in M59 with a half-built character (I.E., 80 hps with one and a half schools). Compare this to WoW where a 30th level character can't touch about 30% of the content in the game as defined and enforced by the code. At 30th level a character will almost never be able to land a spell or an attack on a 50th level monster, for example. Your sentiment is correct: it's folly to attack something you have no chance to kill, but I'd argue that happens a lot more in modern level-based games than "old" games like M59. Of course, your exact words, that it's "absolute folly to attack something that might kill you" (which, theoretically, most of the content around your level should have the possibility of killing you) is the attitude I see espoused all too often. There's plenty of other entertainment options for people who loathe risk and want only the predictable, why should we hobble ourselves by removing the possibilities challenge and meaningful failure from our games just because this group of people?
Have fun,
Comment by Psychochild — 4 March, 2005 @ 6:26 PM
Tasks that are too easy feel dull. Tasks that are too hard feel frustrating. The task that is too difficult for me might be easy for you, and vice versa. Single player games have difficulty levels so i can adjust them. Why are difficulty levels taboo in mmogs? Is it because of those who belive that "it's not enough that i succeed; everyone else must fail?"
Comment by Mikyo — 8 March, 2005 @ 6:43 AM
I think the issue is that MMOs are moving more towards the passive entertainment that mass audiences crave. I think a strong case can be made that MMOs are becoming slightly more interactive versions of movies. You have a character that you identify with. You experience a set of tension filled events with said character. You move toward the happy ending that you know is coming.
The types of failure that you espouse would increase the level of emotion and excitement experienced by players and audiences. There is definitely a market for this type of entertainment. I enjoy movies where the good guy loses in the end. It keeps you on your toes and increases the positive emotions felt when you are not sure if the good guy will win, and then he does.
However, games that have the budget of current MMOs have to appeal to the same mass audience that large budget movies do. As a result, they have to make sure that they don't alienate the majority of players/viewers by having them experience crushing failure. They also don't experience intense joy when there is success, but they don't seem to mind.
Comment by Rich — 8 March, 2005 @ 6:44 AM
Mikyo>>
Single player games have difficulty levels so i can adjust them
Everyone is playing in the same game space, often in groups. This is not really possible (or at least it would not make sense).
Comment by Rich — 8 March, 2005 @ 6:51 AM
Maybe the mass market wants to entertained, not challenged?
Comment by Mikyo — 8 March, 2005 @ 6:52 AM
If diffficulty levels required changing the content, tnen yes, they wouldnt make sense. I wonder, tho, if difficutly couldnt be adjusted by changing the characters. Perhaps by buffing characters who fail too often, and handicapping those who appear to have it easy?
Comment by Mikyo — 8 March, 2005 @ 6:59 AM
Oh well, nevermind. Im quitting mmmogs. World of Warcraft, my first try at this kind of game, seemed awesome, at first. But the constant rain of nerf after nerf after nerf just makes me feel weak, helpless, and sad. Blizzard's idea of game balance == "Since we can't make the dwarfs taller, lets cut off all the elfs heads." Spin the bottle to see who gets hurt next, and how badly. Bye, folks.
Comment by Mikyo — 8 March, 2005 @ 8:20 AM
Difficulty levels are interesting. The thing is, though, you'd have to make it subtle in order for it not to be gamed. One big issue is "bottomfeeding", and players would probably happily fail for a bit to get the buffs, then complain when the game turns too easy. It would have to be balanced out.
Mikyo, perhaps you should try some other games? More established games, like Meridian 59, are fairly well balanced by now. You don't have the nerf du jour as you do in more modern games. I've said before than "old" isn't a bad thing when it comes to online games. It just means the game is more stable.
Have fun.
Comment by Psychochild — 10 March, 2005 @ 12:01 AM
"You couldnt kill the jabberwocky, so you don't get a cookie, and you lose some of the cookies you already collected. Furthermore, you will not be allowed to progress to area 51 until the jabberwocky dies. Your only option is to fight the same battle over and over again until you get it right." This is the online equivalent of "Your party is all dead ... reload, restart, or exit?"
Many of the greatest heros of film and story ultimately fail. But their failures are meaningfull and inspiring. Watching 'The Last Samurai' for example, it's obvious from the start that Katsumoto is doomed, and that his defeat will mark the end of an era. But we respect and admire him nevertheless. Even tho he is defeated, his death makes the world a better place, by inspiring the emperor to resist foreign abuses.
Katsumoto could not exist in a MMORPG, because in a MMORPG the world never changes. The Princess you rescue today will be missing again tommorrow. If you return to the ogres cave, it will have returned to life while you were away. Failure is impossible. So is success.
Comment by Mikyo — 22 March, 2005 @ 8:43 PM
Not always. Sometimes the world does change. Let me give a few examples from Meridian 59.
There's a mana node in Meridian 59 in the Vale of Sorrows guarded by fey. Good fey and evil fey fight against each other in the Vale. Players can come in and fight for one side or the other. If they manage to kill all the fey of one alignment, then the mana node appears. Anyone who has previously gotten the mana node who has opposite alignment loses the node. So, for example, if all the good fey are killed, players with positive Karma will lose the node.
Sure, once the players leave things go back to "normal" with both sides of the fey fighting once more. It'd be an awfully boring area if people could only play it once. But, there's the possibility for something a bit more meaningful. Take this a step further and you can see some delightful possibilities. (Not to say that this system isn't gamed nearly to death, but there's some definite possibilities here.)
That's why I'm eager to see failure in these games. Failure may not be "fun" in the traditional sense, but it can be engaging. We can do a lot better than we have in most of these games. It's a chicken-and-egg thing, though: players have to demand it before we start seeing more of it in these games. Players also need to show that they're willing to support games that do this.
Have fun,
Comment by Psychochild — 23 March, 2005 @ 5:22 AM
Prehaps player surrogacy might be one solution for allowing failure. The magic node is one example of a simple sort of surrogacy; DAoC RvR is another example of surrogacy. Basically make the players primary actors for NPC game elements, and modify the game world according to the success or failure of the players in aggregate and in particular. Most games nod to this, but I'd like to see it as a basic design element of an MMO, altering the world state and impacting an ongoing storyline ala Asheron's Call, with players being able to adopt either side of the conflict, rather than just opposing the Bag Guys put forth by the devs.
Of course, this brings in content creation issues, since you will have to create more content to support more world permutations.
Comment by Evangolis — 23 March, 2005 @ 1:14 PM
Yes, this seems to be the endpoint of all mmorpg discussions. How can we create content more quickly and for less expense? The plots and characters and themes are already well known from other media. But how to translate them onto a computer? Can we bring Katsutmoto to life, even as an NPC?
Comment by Mikyo — 23 March, 2005 @ 3:13 PM
Has anyone considered building a mmog with a defined beginning, middle and end? For example, the many excellent stories of King Arthurs knights, already extremely well developed, could provide a perfect setting for a MMOG. Problems, yes. The plot is already known and predetermined. A defined sense of the passage of time would be necessary. Players would have much less power than they are accustomed too. Major characters would have to played by gamemasters, or at least NPCs. It must eventually come to an end, and an unhappy one at that. But would it be worth a try? Could the technology handle it?
Comment by Mikyo — 23 March, 2005 @ 6:25 PM
The relevant design problem is this. What do you do with the one server that figures out how to save Arther? See Mulligan and Patrovsky for what happens if the players outwit the storyline and you don't let them win.
Comment by Evangolis — 23 March, 2005 @ 9:11 PM
You reset that server along with all the others. They "won" and live happily ever after, essentially. So you hit the reset switch and start again.
One game has tried this, A Tale in the Desert. The point of the game is to advance society and have a successful end. According to plans, every six months the world restarts and everyone starts again. The problem is that most people focus on the other aspects of the game (building stuff, finishing tests) than the overarching story of the game. You also have the danger of alienating by eliminating the one thing these games are good for: persistence. By wiping the world, you get rid of that advantage. Unless there's a way to carry something meaningful from one incarnation to the next.
Some things to think about.
Comment by Psychochild — 23 March, 2005 @ 9:39 PM
How long should a persistent game last? Nothing is forever, but six months between resets doesn't seem long enough. Does anyone know how long the players tend to keep their subscriptions before moving on?
Comment by Mikyo — 24 March, 2005 @ 3:40 AM
I really enjoy reading your articles. Keep up the great work.
TBoardenson
Comment by Tom — 6 March, 2006 @ 9:23 AM
Makin’ it easy
[...] misses an important design point: if failure is part of the game, then it's important that the failure have meaning. Failure needs to be part of the feedback cycle and not just a point of frustration. In action [...]
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