Game Development Advice

[blackraver]

I love DE and how open they have been with the community. It's ignited my passion to be software designer for videogame developers like you guys. But as a beta tester whose played innumerable games of every different genre, in beta or released i just want to point out a few things.

 

Wether you decide to go vertical progression with weapons or horizontal progression you are gonna run into difficulties. Vertical progression will force you to keep providing newer, and more powerful weapons, while at the same time making enemies stronger to compensate. Horizontal progression will cost you more resources upfront to provide the sort of balance that can be tweaked more easily later.

 

Both have their merits for certain types of gamers. I prefer horizontal progression where most weapons are sidegrades and their is no STRONGEST. It also forms a meta game. Though this game should not be perfectly balanced. A reputable group Extra Credits provide excellent suggestions for what to consider when developing a game, namely the formation of said meta game

 

 

I'm not saying that DE should treat their word as the that of god, but to take into consideration many of the valid points they bring up. Best of luck to you guys and I want you guys, and this game to be as succesful as possible. Hope you guys don't get to discouraged when some people in the community belittle your efforts.

[-Kittens-]

Most of the article's advice has rather little to do with warframe's metagame, and both models are flawed to some degree.

Edited August 8, 2013 by -Kittens-

[blackraver]

how are they flawed? the creation of perfect imbalanced system would create metagame in and of itself. please explain

[Definitegj]

That video is mostly for PVP settings. Warframe is PVE.

[-Kittens-]

The vertical model is predicated on finishing the game definitively, something unlikely to happen in wf's play-space.

 

The horizontal model potentially restricts forward progression on enemy and hazard design by locking everything into a set range of usability, until you revamp everything to fit the new paradigm, which can be tremendously wasteful on talent and output.

[blackraver]

The vertical model is predicated on finishing the game definitively, something unlikely to happen in wf's play-space.

 

The horizontal model potentially restricts forward progression on enemy and hazard design by locking everything into a set range of usability, until you revamp everything to fit the new paradigm, which can be tremendously wasteful on talent and output.

i had not considered that. Thanks for the input, will take that advice when i start making games

[Mietz]

The vertical model is predicated on finishing the game definitively, something unlikely to happen in wf's play-space.

 

nope.jpg

[PyroPaul]

you also have to realize that EC tends to do a lot of talking about RPG's...  many of the suggestions in many of their videos conflict with say, a first person shooter.

[Tsukinoki]

@-Kittens-

Very true about what you say for the horizontal progression locking you in.

If you rely on horizontal progression where nothing is really 'better' than anything else and all are side-grades you come across the problem of how much difficulty you can add. You are locked in with an upper limit on how tough you can make enemies and bosses before they are no longer viable for a group to face.

In vertical progression you at least have a way of increasing that difficulty to a higher level, simply add better gear that the players can get and then they can face the new, harder, content.

I think that a game like MH got a good mixture of vertical and horizontal progression that works nicely, but is hard to balance around and implement.

Within each tier of equipment there is very little that is objectively better or worse, just different. And you can come up with the weapons and armor and skills to fit your playstyle and the situation that you happen to be in.

But if you wanted to move up to the next tier and you tried to do it without being able to craft at least the beginning gear from that tier, you had a much more difficult time.

If you had the gear for that tier it was pretty simple and you could handle anything that tier or lower, but if you tried to go higher you needed to upgrade your weapons and armor, otherwise it just gets too difficult to progress much further.

[Bakercompany86]

Warframe has RPG elements, so the EC video definitely applies.

 

Especially considering power creep.  Warframe is a perfect example of power creep at it's worst.  All creativity is lost as you work your ways towards endgame.  Players are currently forced to upgrade their damage with little to nothing else playing part in our decisions to build our endgame characters.

 

It's like a leveling funnel that forces everyone down the same pipe eventually.  This is an example of vertical progression done incorrectly.

 

Warframe would probably be best suited with a hybrid vertical/horizontal progression of some sort.  Something that drastically tones down the enemy hp and armor scaling and enables players to actually customize their builds to suit their playstyle.

 

 

And I think that's why I love horizontal progression systems.  Instead of upgrading stats, I'm granted additional tools that help me accomplish my goals in different ways.

 

In it's current state, Warframe in no way can support a purely horizontal progression system.  That and a good few players have expressed their desire to maintain the ability to make content trivial so they have no challenge what-so-ever.  This boggles my mind, why are you playing the game at that point?  Power trip?  Who knows.  I prefer actual challenge.  And I play shooters specifically because of the challenge they provide.  I want my enemies to continue to get smarter and more deadly the further into a game I get.  I don't care if you want to add easy/normal/difficult settings to help those who have less skill (IE, the power trip kids). 

 

 

EDIT:  @ Tsukinoki:  MH....Monster Hunter?

Edited August 8, 2013 by Bakercompany86