If a Skill Tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound?: A glance at Talent Trees and Dead Gear.

Thanks, wikipedia.

 Consider the Skill tree. (Or Talent tree, or Tech tree, whatever you'd like to call it.)

It is a character development systems mechanic that tends to be seen in RPGs, that allows the player to progress their avatars in a widely customizable way, giving the player the option to develop their own playing styles. Although the origins of this type of progression mechanic obviously lie in Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop gaming (purchasing feats, abilities), over the past decade or so they have become a staple in even more mainstream, action games that want to add more complexity or depth to their gameplay.

But what makes them tick? What is it about Talent Trees that players enjoy? Let's pry a little into the history of the Skill Tree.

Now, let the fight over whose dice is whose commence

In the beginning, D&D players would lovingly create their own characters. Customization was an essential, core part of the tabletop RPG experience. Even then, D&D rule books would painstakingly craft large charts of feats, traits and abilities different races and classes would be able to take, complete with extensive criteria for each. With D&D, it tended to follow a logical approach to these feats and traits. You couldn't master how to wear heavy armor before mastering how to wear medium armor, for instance. You could only gain these sweet holy divination powers if you worshiped X deity. That makes sense!

As videogames began to encroach on tabletop gaming, these customizable feats and traits began to take a more abstract and simplified form to better match a medium confined not to a stack of giant, masterfully written tomes, but instead a low-resolution pixel screen. Even so, these early adaptations had much more in common with D&D than our current manifestations did, often filled with complex formula multipliers and redundancies. They allowed players to, although through limited means comparatively, customize their skillset and statistics by using a visual chart, with the skills and traits illustrated clearly on the screen.

FreeCiv's tech tree

At around the same time, RTS (Real Time Strategy) games were becoming a popular pastime for strategy fans.Many of these games made use of Technology trees, large charts clearly marking the relationships, prerequisites and criteria between each level of skills. For instance, you could not build a boat until you have a lumbermill. And you cannot build a lumbermill unless you have the knowledge of creating one! And don't forget about having to chop down the wood needed to build that lumbermill, etc etc. Whereas in RPGs, the skill tree was more about picking and choosing which traits you wanted to have, with only a meager allowance of points of which to spend; early RTS games often allowed you to master everything, with only time and your own ability to survive against your foes being the limiting factor.

Kingdoms of Amalur gave perks of jacks-of-all-trades

Mastery! What a word. RPG players have usually always shown a preference to mastering a specific skillset or role when given the choice of specializing in a role or becoming a jack of all trades; often chiding the inefficiency of trying to be everything at once. This attitude goes back to dual-classing in D&D (and perhaps common sense); some combinations were simply redundant, not very optimal or useful to use. Eventually, it may have given rise to the idea that a player should only be able to master ONE thing, or settle for being only okay at a bunch of things. Basically, Specialization vs. Versatility.

Many MMOs and RPGs have talent builds that vary wildly.

Skill trees helped visualize this spectrum. Should a player invest all of their effort into a single area, or could there possibly be pros to combining different areas?

This sort of meta-gaming was fueled by the great breadth of customization allowed by talent trees and skill allotment systems, especially in large MMOs. The craving for experimentation with different builds has became so great that it is now uncommon for a developer to NOT include a 'respec' (re-specialization) option for players to choose all of their talents/traits over again.  It wasn't long before even more action-oriented       games began to employ different forms of trait/skill allotment similar to skill trees.

ME3 eventually returned some of the breadth and complexity, but not all.

Although visually and technically not a skill tree, Mass Effect's skill allotment resembles one, mechanically. The player allocates points in a variety of skills and traits, unlocking more advanced skills and traits as he goes. Many agree that Mass Effect 2's streamlining of skill customization may have gone too far, severely limiting the depth of player customization, and by extension, alienating the original playerbase.

Other examples of forays into trait customization includes Final Fantasy 10's sphere grid system, which made the player level up all of their party members by traversing an enormous circular grid in a sort of puzzle-like manner. While it was certainly large and intimidating, it was actually much more linear than it seemed, only offering a single path for each character to go through, for the majority of the game. A later rendition of the game changed this, revising the entire grid and allowing the player to essentially pick, with lots of freedom, which class and which abilities each character should be.

Notably, the new Diablo-eque Path of Exile features a progression system very obviously inspired from FFX's sphere grid.

Where does this come into play with Dead Gear?

As you may recall in much earlier postings, my original vision for Dead Gear was a much more arcadey metroidvania venture, with new elemental attacks coming from found items and relics, which doubled as tools to progress the player through the game.

I liked the old system, but it bothered me that there was no real discernible character progression in the game.  Whereas the Metroid games could survive on finding new tools and weapons alone, I wanted to steer Dead Gear into more of a RPG-Metroidvania direction, with leveling up, stats and picking up items. And so, I eventually came up with the Gem Ring, which is a node-based system inspired from FFX's sphere grid, and to an extent, the weapon upgrading in Dead Space.
 An early version of the Gem Ring, shown above, shows that there will be 8 separate trees within Dead Gear, each with their own progression.

The Moonstone and Diamond trees

As the player levels up, they will be able to guide energy from the bottom into unpowered nodes, giving the player different stat boosts, active and passive abilities. Each tree offers its own element, weapon-type mastery and play style. For example, a player in one play-through may decide to master the Sword abilities, allowing them to parry attacks and do air combos, and even use a massive charged attack move. Another time, perhaps they will focus mainly on summoned familiars.

To balance this, I added an 'Attunement system,' giving the player the choice of two trees to become attuned to at a single time. Becoming attuned to a specific tree means that you are granted all of the stat bonuses, passive bonuses and active abilities granted to you in that tree.

The top 1/2~ of every tree is locked off until a player decides to 'master' that particular tree. I plan to allow players to unlock the full potential of perhaps 2-3 different trees in the first play-through.

One half of a fusion node is energized from the left side.

In addition, as all 8 trees are next to each other, but technically separate, I decided to add a bonus to players who decide to master or level up complimentary trees, called 'Fusion Nodes.' They are special active and passive abilities that can be unlocked only if they are unlocked on both sides. As an added boon, the fusion nodes will be accessible from either tree, if you are attuned to one of them!

Voila! Now the fusion node is unlocked and is usable by EITHER tree.

Anyway, that's my little spiel on player progression and skill trees for now.

-Alex

Dead-Ends in Games, and How to Use Them

A 'Dead-End' in Dead Gear. Or is it?

Let's consider Dead-Ends in games. What are dead-ends?

 I would define them specifically as such:  

An non-essential area or path in a level that the player can take that will require backtracking to return to the original 'correct' path.

 Dead-Ends have long been touted as an exercise in bad game design by older game design veterans; particularly those who designed multiplayer maps in first-person shooters such as Doom, Unreal, Quake, etc.

They have a point, a player running into a long corridor only to find no reward down there might feel betrayed, or annoyed. Certainly in multiplayer deathmatch maps, which were the norm back then, you generally want to keep a circular flow to the levels, allowing attacks and escapes to occur in any direction.

But even then, there were exceptions; I remember even in some of the multiplayer deathmatch maps, it was common to have a long corridor with a powerful pick-up (either a powerful weapon or full armor) at the very end. The fact that you would have your back exposed the entire time you ran down the corridor to get the powerup, and that you'd have to run all the way back; made it a risk vs reward situation; something that spiced things up and that many players appreciated.

The One True Way indeed.

But that's an entire different genre. Different games and genres will generally have different reactions to a dead-end.

For instance, RPGs (particularly JRPGS) can be maddening when you find a path that leads to nothing. I remember playing Suikoden Tierkreis on my DS; a very well produced JRPG, but not without its flaws.

But two flaws in particular, in combination, inspired a rage in me the likes none have ever seen.

-Long Dungeon Corridors that lead to nothing.
-Random Encounter Battles every 3-5 steps.

It made what should take a 15 minute romp through a dungeon into a grueling hours-long affair; irritatingly and artificially extending the playtime of the game. It could have been more easily forgiven if it wasn't such a pain getting to the end of a corridor, OR if there was a nice reward for doing so.

Catching view of a Strider

In more linear, single-player action games, dead-ends are not often used, much to the detriment to the game. Valve, of Half-life fame, used them on occasion, either rewarding the player with heath, ammo, hint or a visual treat that the player would not have been able to see otherwise.

For instance, near the beginning of the game, as the player walks through City 17, they can walk down a dead-end alleyway, and catch sight of the spider-like Strider enemies, something that they won't be facing until the end of the game.
Valve is quite skilled in rewarding the player venturing off the beaten path.

And that's really one of the greatest boons to dead-ends: it prevents a game from becoming too linear, without having to create alternate pathways to the same destination. It can also intrigue the Completionist player, who wants to find and explore every inch of a level. But if used irresponsibly or unfairly, it can just irritate people playing the game, especially if there's a lot of unnecessary backtracking. Interestingly, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was extremely gracious in that most of their dungeons exist in a large loop, connecting the final room of the dungeon with the very first room; allowing the player to skip backtracking through the entire dungeon. This was handy because it also allowed level designers to be more ambitious with their designs, creating points-of-no-return, obstacles that would force the player to defeat the dungeon, unable to go back the way he came.

Dead-Ends can also cause a few pretty interesting player behaviors! Take a look below.

Let's pretend this is a map for the last part of a First Person shooter level. There are three paths at the end of the initial corridor, but only one leads to the end of the level. To continue, the player will just have to guess to head to the right if there are no visual or audio hints to guide him there.

As you can see, if the player takes the wrong path, leading to a dead end, they are forced to retrace their steps.

The fact that a dead-end does not provide essential gameplay, means that the player is not required to enter the dead end to complete the level. 

This of course means that the dead-end can not contain anything that is essential for completion of the level or later levels, if one cannot return to this area later. This is mostly an issue in level or chapter-based games.

 You can also justify a dead-end by making it essential to traverse in order to progress in the level.

In this example, the player needs to find the green key in order to bypass the green door. In this case, it is not really a dead-end as much as necessary backtracking within the level.

A possible fault with using this strategy exclusively is that eventually the flow of the level will feel much too linear if taking every single path is essential to beating the level.

There's an interesting behavior I've noticed in players that play games with branching paths and dead-ends.

If one particular path is clearly marked or hinted that it is the correct door to go through, players will always almost NOT take that first! Why? Because they don't want to miss the chance to find hidden goodies elsewhere in case that hinted doorway is actually a point of no return.

Samus cannot traverse these spikes until she gets the grappling beam.

This brings us to the most relevant genre to Dead Gear; the games that feature an open game world that are not sectioned off into stages or levels.

This includes games such as Zelda, Metroid, Resident Evil and Castlevania. One of the common traits between all of them is that they feature backtracking to a degree. Another is their use of Game-Locks.





A game-lock is a level design mechanic that is, for all purposes, a Dead-End for the player; until they obtain a new item or ability (or trigger an event) that allows them to bypass it. In a game like Resident Evil, it can be something as simple as finding a key to a matching door that they found in a dead-end ages ago on the other side of the mansion.

In many ways, the Game-lock is one of the essential ingredients to creating a Metroidvania game; ensuring a fairly linear game while retaining an enormous game world with branching paths. Look at this map of Castlevania:SOTN. While enormous, the game limits your progression entirely on abilities gained. (Although, in the game's greatness, entire regions, bosses and abilities are completely optional!)

Another important caveat is that in SOTN, there is not a single dead-end that is unrewarded. Even if it's something as simple as a small health item or a crappy weapon, the player won't feel cheated for their efforts in exploring.

Mining Drill in Greenlight Mines

Let's take another look at the Dead Gear picture I posted at the top of this post. This is an example of a Game-Lock that also functions as a Dead-End. He simply cannot progress any further with his current abilities. But the player may notice the opening from above; and even if he doesn't, he will remember the large mining drill, making a mental note of it. When he returns later with a new-found ability and manages to get through that opening in the ceiling, he will feel accomplished and proud of figuring out this Game-lock.

There's a lot more to talk about, but this post has gone on pretty long already. See you next time.

-Alex

A few little screenshots

Figured I should show a few extra screenshots of what I've been working on!
Over the past month or so, I've been doing the next pass on Dead Gear's graphics, tilesets and animation;
in addition to a ton of systems and combat design.

There's still a lot of work to be done, especially in getting tiles to mesh correctly, restricting camera movement so that it doesn't show certain section; (will be raising the camera so Illyia is not in the center of the screen, as well, but rather below the center.) Still pretty unpolished, but acceptable for this stage of development, at least.

Does this look familiar? Ingame version of my very first mockup. Still needs a background.

Inside the ruins of the airship.

Outside in the snow

Illyia, your room's kind of a mess.

Updated concept of Title screen, will shift from day to night.

 -Alex

A Quick Glance at NPC Companions

Gosh, it's been quite a while since I updated. Sorry about that, been pretty busy!

Elizabeth, your constant companion in Bioshock Infinite

Ever since completing the recently released, beautiful Bioshock Infinite on hard mode with my wife, (What? Yes, I'm married now!) I had been giving some pretty heavy thought to a particular mechanic that is used sparingly in games; and for generally good reasons. This mechanic, of course, is the NPC companion; a computer-controlled character that the player frequently, and directly interacts with in the game, either in narrative, or gameplay, or both.

Ever the bane of the player, the NPC companion/escort AI usually manages to be annoying, intrusive, creepy, useless, or a complete liability to have around. They break immersion by failing to interact with the character or break into uncanny valley territory. For this reason, and the difficulty in countering all of this, having NPC companions as a central gameplay mechanic is unusual, and usually very hit or miss.

Would you call Wheatley an NPC companion?

At least she didn't tell me to listen

As a reminder, when I think of the term NPC companion, I'm usually thinking about mechanics revolving around computer-controlled characters that follow you around in actual gameplay, either to support you; or for you to defend. For instance, I would not think of Wheatley from Portal 2 so much as an NPC companion as much as an NPC character, even though he was brilliantly written, and you do interact directly with him in the game for brief moments. However, all of his dialogue and movement is completely scripted and timed, and you generally interact with him indirectly. In the same vein, I wouldn't call Navi or Midna from Zelda NPC companions, regardless of them hanging around the player the entire time. Even though they were their own characters; functionally, they served more as an extension of the main character.

Escorting Ashley Graham through RE4.

More classical examples of an NPC companion would be the computer-controlled Helpers from Kirby Superstar, Ashley Graham and Sheva from Resident Evil 4/5, etc. (An obvious hallmark in NPC companions would be Alyx Vance from HL2, but more on that later.) Others might include your AI Teammates in Left 4 Dead or Mass Effect.

Unintentional bloodshed with Oblivion/Skyrim companions.

Looking back over the past 15 years or so, there have been a decent library of games that featured NPC companions as a feature, although rarely as a central mechanic. Many of them were terrible, most of them were workable, and a few of them were pretty good.

Hand-holding in Ico as a gameplay mechanic

One game that might get overlooked would be Konami's Ico, where the main mechanic of the game was for the player has to hold an aloof and otherworldly girl named Yorda's hand and guide her to safety. Ico is a fantastic game for several reasons, but the very human, almost intimate act of guiding somebody by the hand and defending them from harm was an excellent way for players to form an emotional bond with two characters that are otherwise completely silent. Although her entire function is essentially that of an helpless and mute escortee; guiding Yorda around Ico's world felt more real and immersive than the majority of games that use NPC companions as a core mechanic.

Not pictured: me murdering Boomer

I remember years ago, playing the original SOCOM for the PS2, where you had to order around AI teammates with voice commands. Eventually, I started each mission by shooting my personal NPC companion, Boomer, in the head, until he was dead. My in-game avatar would mark this grisly murder by yelling 'MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN!!' into the radio. But I had no regrets. Boomer would no longer throw grenades directly at a wall to have them bounce back and kill us both. While the other two teammates were useful and could work on their own, he would tag around me, give away my position, get killed, and was more liability than ally.

 But when playing Bioshock Infinite, I noticed something: I didn't hate Elizabeth. In fact, I actually enjoyed having her around as both a gameplay and narrative mechanic, in addition to being an interesting character. But what design choices made her different from Boomer? (With respect to the difference in game genres) Here are a few key differences:

-While she didn't actively participate in the fierce gun battles, Elizabeth would still provide a vital supportive role by throwing much-needed money, ammo and restoration items at the player. She also gave the player the ability to summon allies, turrets or cover. She would even lockpick locked doors for the player, giving access to new areas, point out items that the player might have missed, and even revive the player when he died.
From a gameplay and narrative perspective, this was a great design choice. Elizabeth provides such useful support, that when you get separated, you feel the sting of her not being there. It is considerably easier to force players into creating an emotional bond with an NPC through gameplay than it is through a narrative. Had Elizabeth not provided concrete, measurable gameplay support, the sting would not have been as noticeable.

-Elizabeth would not be harmed in battles, instead hiding behind cover, away from the battle.
This design choice prevented the entire game from being a dreaded babysitting escort mission, which would essentially cripple the player's gameplay experience and the developer's ability to create a large variety of combat situations. Elizabeth would even yelp out an apology if she's briefly in your way during a fight.

 

-Elizabeth constantly interacted with the environment and other NPCs.
I can't count the number of times I would see Elizabeth out of the corner of my eye doing something interesting. Eavesdropping on conversations, enjoying the view, playing with her hands, reacting to dialogue, curiously observing signs and painting and wincing at dead bodies. Elizabeth's clothes became torn and she would switch outfits throughout the game. Notably, Elizabeth would not always follow you, but instead take the lead and run ahead when something interested her. Overall, the game did a pretty excellent job at immersing Elizabeth, and the player by extension, into the game's world.

-Relevance to the Game Narrative and having a Emotional Bond
Of course, these facts would not matter if the player did not establish an emotional link to Elizabeth through the narrative and some pretty excellent acting. Elizabeth is designed to be an immensely likable character that is easily empathized with. It's no coincidence that many have been comparing her look and mannerisms to that of Disney Princesses, which serves as a stark contrast with the flat-toned, realist Booker. The player shares the majority of cutscenes in the game with her, and indeed, the plots revolves almost entirely around her. In other games with NPC companions, would you feel as touched by their death as much as Elizabeth or Alyx Vance's?

Alyx Vance from HL2 was a revolutionary development for NPCs.

Overall, I personally think that Elizabeth is the first really big step forward NPC companions since Alyx Vance in Half Life 2 back in 2004. While certainly not the revolutionary feat that Alyx was, Elizabeth is rather a very impressive evolution of Alyx's concept and design.

I'd argue that some of Alyx's flaws were even averted with Elizabeth; Valve had the narrative and emotional link with Alyx, but she did not often actually fight or interact directly with the player except for some short segments (although this was remedied somewhat in EP1-2). She was a companion from a narrative point of view, but not necessarily from a gameplay side. Alyx would not comment on her surroundings unless it was a directly scripted cutscene, or support the player directly; she could fight and get damaged, but the vast majority of the work was done by the player. In a way, Alyx primarily served as the voice for the mute Gordon Freeman while being a strong, independent character of her own. Granted, HL2 was revolutionary mainly for the scripted real-time cutscenes, and Alyx was, in some ways, simply an extension of it.

That's not to say that Elizabeth was perfect, however. Although very rarely in the game, I think there were sections that could have been changed to improve immersion. For example, at one point in the game, Elizabeth is upset with Booker and wants nothing to do with him. But not 20 feet away is a locked door, and Elizabeth cheerily agrees to open the door for you, despite her apparent distaste for you! Would it not have been more interesting and immersive for the level designer to place a door there for the sheer purpose of having Elizabeth refuse to open it for you? Or a small dialogue where Booker tries to convince her to open it up for him? Luckily, these small breaks in immersion were rare and never enough to actually take me out of the game; but I think they could have been built upon for a richer, more believable experience.

 In conclusion, I really think the key point to all this is that making a good NPC companion within a game requires these things:

-Contributes positively to the Gameplay through support or additional mechanics
-Contributes to the Narrative
-Immersive and creates an Emotional Bond

Some games hit all three of these marks very high, some of the games hit only one or two. This doesn't mean that they're bad games of course; some of what they lack may be adding to the charm of the game itself.

I plan to add an NPC companion (aside from summonable allies) for a short stretch of Dead Gear; but nothing too revolutionary, simply an ally to help you dish out the pain!

-Alex