Mirukihoshi
internet therapist
- Joined
- May 5, 2016
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Impeccably explained by Nerdcubed slash Daniel Hardcastle
"I like to design games so that everything the player does and doesn't do ties into the main goal of that game."
I wrote this sentence a few days before No Man's Sky (NMS) came out on PS4 and, while playing the game for the first time today, I realised that this is exactly the opposite of what NMS does and is the reason I seriously dislike NMS.
First, I'm going to expand on that idea by breaking down two other games first as examples. That'll be Super Mario Bros and Minecraft. Then I'll apply these rules to NMS and you'll see where it misses out.
In most games you have a main goal and sub goals. You have abilities to achieve those goals, obstacles that will stop you, abilities to get past those obstacles, obstacles to stop those abilities and so on and so forth. The further you get out the more abilities and obstacles tie together until you're left with the final techniques of the game. No matter how messy that gets, everything ties back to the goals.
Example 1 - Mario
In a Mario game you have to save the princess (main goal) by completing levels (sub goals). To complete the sub goals you have to get to the end of the level! Well, you have the ability to run to the right! The game puts a bad guys and holes in the way. Now you have to jump. Now there are bigger holes. You have to run and jump. Now there are enemies that are harder to jump over. You have to shoot them or be careful etc etc.
You see how it escalates? Everything you are given is designed to help you with that one big goal. Finish the levels. Save the Princess.
Example 2 - Minecraft
Minecraft is a bit more complicated. There is a main goal (reach The End) but it's a game where that can take a back seat to player created goals (like make a giant gold penis.) I'll focus on the food side of things for now to make it easier.
To complete your goals you need to gather materials. Well, you have the ability to punch trees! But that makes you hungry. So you have to cook food. But food isn't infinite. So you have to farm. But you'll need tools. So you can make them. The materials for tools are underground. So you have to mine. Mining is dangerous. So you can heal with food. etc etc.
This reads like a linear list when really it's branching but it shows you that everything in the game is added to make it more difficult or help you with how difficult it is. Breaking a game down like this is like the "show your working" formulae for game balancing.
Right. That's two examples. Now onto the practice questions.
No Man's Sky
NMS's main goal is to reach the center of the galaxy. The sub goal is to create the fuel to travel between systems.
To complete your goals you need to gather materials. Well, you have the ability to mine materials with your device! But it needs fuel. Well, you have the ability to mine materials with your device! But it needs fuel. Well, you have the ability to mine materials with your device! But it needs fuel....
Hang on. Fuck. Feedback loop already. What's the point of this? It basically means that mining just gets a small percentage cut off each go round. It's not adding anything as it's fixed in the step before the problem. It's backwards. In Minecraft tools break over time as an encouragement to dig further and find more exotic materials to make your pickaxe out of. Then, hey presto, you've got a working mine and can now get to the next level of tools. You've progressed and will have to fight to stay there. However, in NMS even if you upgrade your Multi Tool it still uses the most basic of fuel to run. This is just changing batteries. Let's cut it out with the power of pretending.
To complete your goals you need to gather materials. Well, you have the
ability to mine materials with your device which doesn't need fuel! The device overheats. You can... wait around a bit.
Again, this isn't something for the player to overcome. What is this adding? Why is it here? This problem may be shortened later with upgrades but it feels like coming up with the ability first then working out the obstacle after. That's not how this system works dammit!
Right. Let's get to the ship stuff to show the real problem.
You can fly your ship off the planet. But you'll need fuel. So you can mine fuel! But you need fuel to fly around in space. So you can mine fuel! But you need fuel to fly around in space at the faster speeds. So you can mine fuel! But you need fuel to fly around in space at the warp speeds.
AGGGHHHHHH. Every fucking problem in this game is solved by the same thing. Mine. Literally the solution for everything. This is why the game feels so fucking shallow, there is one puzzle and the answer is to mine shit. Oh, wait. You can buy stuff too! But you'll need money. Where do you get that? SELLING THE SHIT YOU MINED. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
At this point the game design branches out from the goal marked "center" to sub goals and then collapses back in on itself into one word. "Mine." The cause of, and solution to, all of No Man Sky's problems. Minecraft requires you to mine, but also to build, to experiment. NMS is a game about running around picking up and putting new batteries in everything.
Or is it? You see, I thing NMS makes an even more terrible mistake. It's got mechanics that literally do not tie into the main goal at all. I've already mentioned the mining beam overheating but practically all the survival adds is pressure. In Minecraft if I'm low on food I'm slower, not regenerating health and lose attack power. In Mario I'm smaller and can fit in tinier gaps, but I'm more exposed. In NMS... nothing. It does NOTHING. If I don't fill it back up I die. The end. No tie in whatsoever. It just stops the game. It's a dead end. It may be fixed by the same solution as everything else but it's nothing more than Sonic The Hedgehogs drowning music playing really slowly and forever.
Anyway, that's why I think the game feels off to a lot of people. I am terrible at explaining stuff but I kinda hope you now get where I'm coming from. Now, lets do some quickfire shit kicking on the rest of this game! :smiley:
- This feels like the least explorable video game ever created. Why? Because every goddamn planet in the fucking galaxy HAS ALREADY BEEN FOUND. All of them, without fail, have robots, bases, aliens and all that shit on them. Oh, I discovered this new planet? THEN WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE TOSSERS IN SHIPS ALREADY DOING THE FUCKING HOLDING PATTERN OVER IT?! I'm exploring jack shit.
- The NPC aliens you can talk to are only ever in certain buildings and are always standing still. Must be to hot/cold/wet/toxic out for them.
- I'm not an explorer, I'm a horrible bastard. Each planet is nothing but resources to be torn up and shat out for fuel. There is nothing else to do. (apart from find massive monuments that apparently only have the one word carved into them.) The "explorer" theme and the planet fucking gameplay go together about as well as David Cameron and the foxes that his dogs tear to shreds.
- Why the sweet fuck is every planet covered with a shield 40 feet in the air? My first planet had loads of arches all over it and I just wanted to fix my ship and fly through them. NOPE. Can't be done. You just glide over the top of everything. Nose down and full throttle just causes the game to budge you around sideways. I just want to fly in this cool ravine! Is that too much to ask?
- The menus. They look ugly, move around for no reason and (and who the fuck thought this was a good idea) require you to hold LMB on everything. I had to ask fucking twitter HOW TO CLICK BUTTONS ON THE FUCKING MENU. Always the sign of stellar design that.
- The PC port is super shit. Seriously. I paid £40 for 25fps and frame drops? No wonder I didn't get a review code...
- You can up the FoV on PC but it causes a million and one clipping bugs. Makes the game look baaaaad. Oh and speaking of...
- It's ugly. Super low textures, obvious points where it meshes. Draw distance is around how far I could throw a shotput with my arse cheeks and more pop-in than your mom the first night you have your new girlfriend over.
- Seriously though that draw distance crushes any "I'm on a planet" feelings you may get. I want to see to the horizon dammit.
- Procedural generation is bad. Real bad. Bumpy terrain, odd cave, foliage scattered about, job done. I don't give a fuck if the game simulated an entire lifespan of a planet for just me. If I can't see that then what's the point. Why are all the plants and trees the same height? Where are the vast deserts, massive forests or golf courses? 18 tetrahedron (a real number) planets and I get the feeling it's about 6 with color pallet swaps. Could you draw a tree from the last planet you visited? One from any of the planets? I don't think you could. Nothing sticks out.
- A quote from a Verge article...
"The developers have set themselves a 90–10 rule. 90 percent of all the planets will not be habitable and won’t have any life on them. Of the 10 percent that do, 90 percent of that life will be primitive and boring. The tiny fraction of garden worlds with more evolved life forms on them will thus be almost as rare in the game universe as they ought to be in
the real one. This scarcity is part of the delicate balance that Hello Games is trying to strike between its idealistic commitment to the science of sci-fi and the inherent need to keep players entertained."
THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THIS IDEA? EVERY PLANET I FOUND LOOKED LIKE THE GARDEN OF FUCKING EDEN AND HAD MORE LIFE IN IT THAN A FUCKING GAY PRIDE PARADE.
- Why the fuck can I just walk through the creatures?!
- Why the fuck can I just fly through the large ships?!
- Why the fuck have I fallen through the floor twice?!
- Why can't I zoom out of the galaxy map? If you zoom out for a while it's just endless clouds. Spore did this shit in 2008 ffs...
- Combat is just the worst.
- INVENTORY IS FULL
- A lot of people are calling this game "relaxing." I find digging for fuel while my "whatever fucking color danger bar this planet gets" ticks down to my death about as relaxing as painful dentist surgery while suddenly remembering I'm parked on a meter and didn't have an 20ps left.
Right that's the negatives. Now for the positives.
- The soundtrack is OK I suppose. Not great.
That's everything! Holy shit I stayed up till 5am to write 2000 words on this piece of shit. Now I don't have to make a video on it. Deal? Deal.
Keep watching the skies.
- Dan
For those severely disappointed in NMS and need a substitute, I highly recommend Starbound. It's not perfect by any means- but that's why mods are a thing! The most important mods to have for Starbound are: FrackinUniverse, and FrackinRaces. These are some of the best mods I've found, and make the game so much better. There are some other good mods, but I'll let you guys find them yourself if people are actually interested.
