Some Thoughts on UI and Level Design

[dondon151]

i think it's a great observation that corroborates the point that information overload is not going to help a novice player in the least.

[Baldrick]

The dracoknight AI is unknown to us until it moves and unless you've put someone in range of it, it's probably going to get the NPCs on turn 2. You have no idea going into the situation what the AI is (NPC is higher priority than PC) and the only way to prevent the dracoknight from killing at least one NPC is to get in its turn 1 range with Tormod.

Why would you assume the dragonknight doesn't move.

Why would you not attempt to bait him on turn 1.

Why do you blame the game for your strategical shortcomings.

We are saying that while players have the capacity to learn, you don't get them to learn (in a fun and intuitive manner) by first giving them a test with consequences.

It is not the first chapter in the game. By the time you reach 1-8, you should have picked up enough skills to handle a test.

Furthermore, the consequences are trivial. You're not going to hurt if you fail, so training wheels should not even be necessary.

[Zerosabers]

Baldrick can we hang that image in an art museum?

Your complaints sound way to similar to people accusing Dark Souls of artificial difficulty when they're the ones who just charged into a room and got killed for it.

The dracoknight AI is unknown to us until it moves and unless you've put someone in range of it, it's probably going to get the NPCs on turn 2. You have no idea going into the situation what the AI is (NPC is higher priority than PC) and the only way to prevent the dracoknight from killing at least one NPC is to get in its turn 1 range with Tormod.

Maybe he will move to kill the NPC's that the game TOLD YOU they will try and kill.

They game gives you the tools to deal with the situation, it isn't the game's fault for not telling you exactly what to do.

[sithys]

What do people think of this excerpt of the Iwata Asks interview of FE12. I feel like it's relevant.

Maeda: Yes. Naturally, I want Fire Emblem to be enjoyed not just by fans, but by everyone.

Narihiro: By the way, when we were making this game, Higuchi-san’s wife played Fire Emblem for the first time.

Higuchi: Ah yes, that is true. (laughs) We’ve been married for about 10 years now, but she hadn’t touched a Fire Emblem game once… But all of a sudden, she told me that she wanted to give one of the games a try…

Iwata: What do you think made her want to play a Fire Emblem game?

Higuchi: It seems that her friends recommended it to her. So I handed her the Wii game Radiant Dawn. Compared to when I joined Intelligent Systems when I first got to play Fire Emblem the situation was reversed. This time I was the one behind her back, observing a beginner playing the game.

Iwata: So now it was your turn be a pain, telling her ‘you should do that here’ and so on. (laughs)

Higuchi: Yes. (laughs) I would give her advice like, ‘You should soften the enemy from a distance with arrows, and then finish them off with a sword user’ and she would obediently do just that, over and over again. And yet, she would get so delighted after managing to defeat just a single enemy…

Iwata: Seeing something like that must have made you think, ‘Is that really worth getting so excited about?’ (laughs)

Higuchi: That’s right. Moreover, while it’s normal to check the ‘Battle Preparation Screen’ before you begin the chapter, so you can decide who to take with you, she would move on without giving it a single look! Seeing that kind of play style felt… very fresh to me.

Iwata: For a moment you could see yourself as you were 14 years ago.

Higuchi: Yes. I found out a lot about how beginners play the games.

Maeda: And since then, your attitude towards beginners has grown gentler.

Narihiro: Up until now, it’s been hard for him to agree with what I’ve been saying, but after watching his wife play, he was suddenly convinced. (laughs)

Two things actually. Not everyone has somebody standing over their shoulder answering questions. I think people have a hard time putting themselves in the shoes of new users, which is why when good innovations are introduced people can't put it into words why they think the innovation is better, they just get a general feeling of quality that comes from transparency.

My suggestion is not information overload any more than the character select screen is information overload. The player would never need to scroll through all the units, because the important ones are at the top and humans are very good at perceiving and interpreting colors. The screen would be optional, below "Reposition" perhaps, so after the player is given a simple example of using the screen they would be allowed to decide for themselves if it will save them time. It is also very possible to convey all the information the user cares about, you really only need to show the equipped weapon, a stealable item if any, and an ability.

The UI would respect the player's time.

If I showed up to work today and somebody was clicking "Next" to page through 50 different pages of information just to pick out a few important details, I would want to redesign the UI they were using and I would very likely use a datagrid.

[electricwolf]

no, no, no. there are 3 problems here:

1. that is not the only way to prevent the dracoknight from killing at least 1 NPC. you can also kill him on turn 2 by shoving tormod through the swamp.

2. you do not get a game over if an NPC dies.

3. you can simply reset after observing the turn 1 outcome; you can even choose to do nothing on turn 1 just to observe the outcome and that would be faster than reading some complex display of AI behavior.

additionally, it's obvious that the NPC priority is higher than player units. they get killed instantly and the game has already told the player that the enemy will be going after the NPCs.

transitioning from assisted swimming to independent swimming, assisted biking to independent biking, and walking to running (or crawling to walking) all entail ample room for mistakes and opportunity to learn from mistakes.

1. With the amount of enemies on this chapter, who plays it for the first time and thinks to use a fairly niche mechanic to go out of their way to kill one unit?

2. The player does not know the consequences of an NPC dying until they die. In previous games there are items for saving villagers, in this game it's BEXP. The fact that there is some difference between letting them die and not die is enough of a carrot on a stick to suggest that players have the potential to be frustrated if they do not save all of them.

3. Once again, resetting to know more about a level isn't a freaking mechanic. It's like a guide you didn't have to find online and the fact that players would need that shows that the level design and/or UI is fundamentally flawed.

How is it obvious that bandits and the dracoknights are the only units to go for NPCs? The implication from the game script is that the entire army will have some involvement in attacking the NPCs yet only a select group do. That select group is not mentioned in any way. Obvious to an experienced FE player and obvious to an inexperienced FE player are entirely different things.

What you are getting at is that those skills are taught with a safety net on and if you take that away you can make mistakes. Take the training wheels off, take the floaties off and the mistakes you make are yours. When the player has been completely taught the mechanics with a safety net (i.e. in a controlled environment), then what they do is up to them. Our point is that the safety net should be there for the swamp and fire chapters and yours is that it should not. It seems we are unable to agree on this matter and frankly it seems I'm changing your mind about as well as you are mine.

Why would you assume the dragonknight doesn't move.

Why would you not attempt to bait him on turn 1.

Why do you blame the game for your strategical shortcomings.

It is not the first chapter in the game. By the time you reach 1-8, you should have picked up enough skills to handle a test.

Furthermore, the consequences are trivial. You're not going to hurt if you fail, so training wheels should not even be necessary.

All the other units in that corner don't move until in range of other units. Why assume the dracoknight is different?

Because there's a whole lot of units much closer to kill and you don't know whether it will move or not.

a. Never blamed the game, blamed leveld design and UI.

b. Not blaming anyone's tactical shortcomings

c. This isn't about me, it's about intuitive level design

d. If you want to make demeaning comments to try and win a debate, maybe get some better insults than accusing someone of being bad at a video game?

Maybe he will move to kill the NPC's that the game TOLD YOU they will try and kill.

"They" is in no way defined clearly, either by exposition or level design.

[Zerosabers]

Maybe they isn't defined because the game excepts you to actually think.Who else would go to kill the NPC's?

[electricwolf]

Who else would go to kill the NPC's?

Any other enemy unit on the map.

[Zerosabers]

Consider this, maybe an enemies in range will be the ones who go after the NPC's.

[Jedi]

tl;dr electricwolf and sithys want to make the series brainless so people don't have to put any effort into playing.

[dondon151]

What you are getting at is that those skills are taught with a safety net on and if you take that away you can make mistakes. Take the training wheels off, take the floaties off and the mistakes you make are yours. When the player has been completely taught the mechanics with a safety net (i.e. in a controlled environment), then what they do is up to them. Our point is that the safety net should be there for the swamp and fire chapters and yours is that it should not. It seems we are unable to agree on this matter and frankly it seems I'm changing your mind about as well as you are mine.

okay i've said this at least twice already

you don't game over if an NPC dies in 1-8 and you don't game over if a house gets lit on fire in 3-9

that's the safety net

you're allowed for 5 of the 6 NPCs to die in 1-8 and i'm not even sure you can game over at all from houses burning in 3-9 because it never happens

[Quintessence]

@electricwolf: you know how AI behaves during the very first enemy phase of 1-8, boss and surrounding enemies are (at least) stationary, the dragon moves up then left. Do you guys actually use the Preparations time? Check menus, check terrain, conditions and inventory? Don't blame level design or UI (because it is transparent enough for the player to play strategically), blame yourself at having zero intuition and zero common sense. There's no mystery there nor UI opacity blah blah blah.

[electricwolf]

Okay, for almost everyone posting this: I had no issue with the chapters because I have played FE before. Even then I probably restarted at least once on the swamp chapter. I'm not trying to make sure FE is playable by people with little brain function, just be intuitive enough for people to be able to form optimal strategies without prior knowledge or knowledge gained through multiple plays/resets of the level.

If someone says that I'm trying to make up for my own tactical shortcomings, I'm going to assume you can't read or comphrehend writing. I am making points on behalf of intuitive game design which I believe is not present in it's optimal form in the specified FE levels.

@zerosabers

If the player (wrongly) assumes that all enemy units have their AI set to go after NPC units, then the sheer number of them means they will be unable to develop a good strategy without trial and error. As has been stated before, resetting after knowing more information doesn't make a better strategist, just an informed one.

tl;dr electricwolf and sithys want to make the series brainless so people don't have to put any effort into playing.

That was really constructive. You made your point really well and now the debate is over.

Meanwhile in the real world, that comment accomplished nothing.

@dondon

The player does not know this. All the player knows is that all prisoners dying is a lose condition.

Much like a unit with a droppable stat booster, the player will always be striving for perfection, i.e. getting the stat booster. Not knowing the reward for saving an NPC doesn't change the fact that players will try and save all the NPCs and may be willing to restart to achieve that goal. And restarting means that the optimal reaction to this gameplay mechanic is to try again with knowledge the player shouldn't have if they were playing through blind.

No matter how small or how rotten the carrot, put it on a stick and people will try and get it.

[dondon151]

Much like a unit with a droppable stat booster, the player will always be striving for perfection, i.e. getting the stat booster.

this is a bold (and false) statement to be making when it is trivial for me to find one example of a player who didn't strive for perfection by not getting all of the treasure or by not recruiting all of the characters or by not making sure that no character died.

you're basically saying that it's poor design for the game to allow the player to make some mistakes. hello, this is good design; it's your much-sought-after safety net for suboptimal play.

Edited August 27, 2015 by dondon151

[Zerosabers]

@zerosabers

If the player (wrongly) assumes that all enemy units have their AI set to go after NPC units, then the sheer number of them means they will be unable to develop a good strategy without trial and error. As has been stated before, resetting after knowing more information doesn't make a better strategist, just an informed one.

If they play smart they'll save anybody who can be killed on turn 1, and on Enemy Phase see that they were wrong in assuming that. Changing their strategy as they go through the map.

I'm going to use Dark Souls' Sen's fortress as an example. You're told it has lots of traps, but aren't told what they look like. In the first room you see what the pressure plates look like, and if your paying attention you won't step on it.

Its the same thing with Fire Emblem, if the player goes in cautiously they won't be caught by the NPC being killed on the 1st turn.

[Quintessence]

wolf you're wrong. How in the world can you come up with an optimal strategy on a chapter you've never played and have no prior knowledge. Experience is also present when formulating the optimal strategy of some chapter. The game will tell you the basics for completing a chapter, not meticulous information about clearing the chapter optimally. A player new to the game or a chapter will never come up with the best strategy during his first play because experience and knowledge is essential for it (example: enemy AI, priorities, etc.). After all, there's also the replay value in play, where the game invites the player, implicitly, to try different methods, tactics and strategies.

[Baldrick]

All the other units in that corner don't move until in range of other units. Why assume the dracoknight is different?

Because there's a whole lot of units much closer to kill and you don't know whether it will move or not.

How do you know the AI of the other units if you don't know the dragonknight's AI?

You have plenty of units at your disposal, and there's only one enemy actually in range of an NPC. Threat assessment is important.

Again, why would you assume it doesn't move? What's the point of a flying unit if it doesn't take advantage of its flight?

I had no issue with the chapters because I have played FE before.

Why do you say it's frustrating, then.

What evidence are you basing this on, if not your own experience.

just be intuitive enough for people to be able to form optimal strategies without prior knowledge or knowledge gained through multiple plays/resets of the level.

Lol. It's a strategy game.

Do you think pianos are poorly designed because you can't sit down and play a symphony without any practice?

Edited August 28, 2015 by Baldrick

[Radiant Dragon]

If the player (wrongly) assumes that all enemy units have their AI set to go after NPC units, then the sheer number of them means they will be unable to develop a good strategy without trial and error. As has been stated before, resetting after knowing more information doesn't make a better strategist, just an informed one.

For the player that assumes that the enemies will all gun for the NPCs immediately, why would a player have to restart after seeing, on the first Enemy Phase, that actually only the Brigands and Dracoknight move towards them? They would simply need to adapt their strategy to focus on keeping those enemies out of the swamp, since the other enemies are only going after their own units. Players would also be able to recognize that because the Dracoknight can fly and ignore the terrain penalties of the swamp, it must be dealt with as quickly as possible. If a player does not recognize this (after all, the game doesn't go out of it's way to tell you that there is a Dracoknight in the corner that will go after the NPCs and can fly over the swamp), then they may have to restart and try the level again with the knowledge that that Dracoknight is there and their strategy must include a way to kill it quickly.

But this isn't a bad thing.

By going in and seeing what works and what doesn't, the player learns how to beat the level, without the game telling them how to beat it. And in future maps with NPCs that need to be protected the player will have learned that high-move and/or flying enemies need to be prioritized first as they will reach the NPCs first. This is just an example of how going in, trying and yes, possibly failing, does make the player a better strategist because they can learn from their successes and even more so from their failures. Even ambush spawns are an example of this, as after a player loses someone to an ambush spawn, they learn that they need to shield their weaker units from forts and stairways. There are bad examples of ambush spawns of course, like Awakening's chapter 16, as there is no possible way for the player to know where the reinforcements will be coming from. But as a general rule FE has gotten better about making them more forgivable, especially in Awakening where they (in all but one or two instances in the last couple chapters) warn you a couple turns before they arrive.

Fire Emblem wants to focus on strategies and formations that are able to adapt to changing situations, like enemy reinforcements or unexpected AI behavior. You can see this with the inclusion of fog of war maps as well, maps specifically intended to punish strategies that overextend or can't adapt to surprise enemies. It's also why Knight/Generals are much more popular with newer players than with experienced ones. A player without prior knowledge of what will happen will play more cautiously, making sure to keep their healers, Dancer and other support units protected behind their combat units. They typically move forward slower to make sure they don't overextend themselves, which makes the Knight/General's defense more valuable and their low move less prohibitive.

While yes, Fire Emblem does reward informed strategies (as all SRPGs do), the process of the player learning and becoming a better strategist involves actually playing the game and experiencing success and failure on their own, after they've gotten the basics of the game down. It would certainly be beneficial to make it easier/faster for the player to be aware of information that's available for them to see, such as enemy ranges, stats, and inventories. However, complete transparency of things like enemy AI or plot events about to happen is not necessary for the player to perform a strategy to get them through the level. It doesn't have to be an optimal strategy; for example, a player may not save all the prisoners or all of the houses (is it even possible to save all of the houses?) on their first playthrough, but will still make it through the level just fine and learn things that they can apply in the next level.

Edited August 28, 2015 by Radiant Dragon

[sithys]

By going in and seeing what works and what doesn't, the player learns how to beat the level, without the game telling them how to beat it....

Fire Emblem wants to focus on strategies and formations that are able to adapt to changing situations, like enemy reinforcements or unexpected AI behavior...

While yes, Fire Emblem does reward informed strategies (as all SRPGs do), the process of the player learning and becoming a better strategist involves actually playing the game and experiencing success and failure on their own...

I don't disagree with what you are saying in the first two points but let me clarify some things. At no point have I ever advocated that the game tell the player how to play. I am simply saying that there is a clear separation between play and non-play, and that non-play should be eliminated. Let me give you some examples.

Out of a 60 hour game, how much time is spent flipping through enemy inventories, and is that amount of time both constructive and appropriate? If you break down the experience of flipping through enemy inventories, you realize that only a small fraction of the time is spent theorizing, coming up with a strategy, or making decisions. You want to preserve the time spent coming up with a strategy, after all that is the goal of a strategy game. Those moments where the player stumbles upon a hammer, or a blue gem, and it makes them wonder "how can I deal with this?" That is part of play. The act of flipping itself, next next next next next next... that is not play. Nobody would refresh a blank webpage every second or so for a minute at a time before playing a game. The activity by itself is not fun. It is non-play. If you simply made a simple UI that outlined the important information the player is actually interested in, the player will look at that information and try to form a strategy, they will make decisions, and it cuts back on the amount of time they spend across the entire game doing a task that is not fun.

As you say, the game should promote adaptability in the player. This is ironic, considering the player can just restart the chapter if they think there is an advantage in doing so, levels are almost completely static, and there are few actual hard punishments to prevent the player from progressing if they don't understand a concept. We as players cannot evaluate game design except to determine whether or not the design meets it's own goals. And as you say players typically just turtle up, use tanky units, create formations to protect their weak units, proceed slowly. If that is how players behave, then the design is deeply flawed because it does not meet it's goals.

If during playtesting new players are not behaving in the way the designer intends, then the designer must use different design techniques to achieve their goals. The fact that the designers have had to resort to crude and ineffective tactics as to create a "casual mode" is proof that there is a significant dissonance between the goals and the results.

I absolutely disagree with you on your last point. The player gains nothing by memorizing what is going to happen. That violates the goal of attempting to promote adaptability in the player. It is, as I have said in previous posts, guard rail driving, where you drive straight until you crash into the guard rails, change direction, and repeat until you reach the destination, then think yourself clever for having reached it.

Adaptability is not in the moment you see the hammer but in the moment when you begin to decide how you are going to respond to it. As I have said over and over again in this thread, there are two stages to cognition, perception and decision making. The first should be transparent and the second should be meaningful.

Some people in this thread have provided examples of how ambush spawns can be used to create a feeling of tension, without saying why ambush spawning as a technique is the most efficient way of accomplishing that goal. In reality, no matter what example you analyze, it is never appropriate to use ambush spawns because other techniques can be just as or more effective at creating the desired experience and they don't disrespect the player by making them replay content they already played through and made no mistakes playing through on account of their lack of previous experience. In the example of ambush spawns Fire Emblem only rewards informed strategies when compared to other mechanics which provide the same experiences and emotions. Such techniques include the thief/chest pattern and the bandit/village pattern, and many others.

Edited August 28, 2015 by sithys

[KMT4ever]

I am simply saying that there is a clear separation between play and non-play, and that non-play should be eliminated.

Except people have different definitions on what quantifies non-play. In shooters some people like to make complicated team plans, while others just charge in guns blazing. Is planning "non-play" because a portion of the player base does't find it worth their time, or is it play because another portion considers it crucial to their playing of the game.

Out of a 60 hour game, how much time is spent flipping through enemy inventories, and is that amount of time both constructive and appropriate?

Based on my experience, very little. It takes about one or two minutes total to check every enemy's inventory with a quick scroll. You note the half-dozen guys (out of 30 or 40 or 50) with a special weapon/item and move on.

If you break down the experience of flipping through enemy inventories, you realize that only a small fraction of the time is spent theorizing, coming up with a strategy, or making decisions.

Maybe for someone who beat the level multiple times and knows what to do, but for someone new they will care more about planning. I personally spend far more time considering who to bring, what to arm them with, and which side of the deployment zone to put them in than I do angsting over the two random generals with horseslayers, and I'm reasonably experienced with FE.

You want to preserve the time spent coming up with a strategy, after all that is the goal of a strategy game.

Figuring out "Which enemies where have what?" is part of your strategy, so you know to treat them differently.

Those moments where the player stumbles upon a hammer, or a blue gem, and it makes them wonder "how can I deal with this?" That is part of play. The act of flipping itself, next next next next next next... that is not play. Nobody would refresh a blank webpage every second or so for a minute at a time before playing a game. The activity by itself is not fun. It is non-play.

Based purely on your personal definition of "fun". Also, the player shouldn't have to "stumble" upon a hammer or blue gem; they should be allowed to find out before even starting the level so they can plan accordingly. When I once got Titania/Oscar (can't remember at this point) killed because a horseslayer Halberdier I had forgotten about attacked her/him, I didn't blame the game for giving the enemy a powerful weapon. I kicked myself mentally for forgetting, then restarted. Next time I sent Haar in to tear him apart. My failure to check something easily available made me lose progress. No fault of the game or the developers.

If you simply made a simple UI that outlined the important information the player is actually interested in, the player will look at that information and try to form a strategy, they will make decisions, and it cuts back on the amount of time they spend across the entire game doing a task that is not fun.

Looking at a spreadsheet is not fun, especially when said spreadsheet doesn't tell me where each enemy is. Why should I care right now about the boss or the warrior with a hammer when they're on the opposite end of the map? I'm more concerned about the three generic mercenaries with generic iron swords currently menacing my healer. Worry about enemies as you approach them. The game already gives you spreadsheets for your own units. Guess what, I've never heard of anyone using them because the units' individual stat screens are so much easier to read. I literally only use them to see when supports are available.

As you say, the game should promote adaptability in the player. This is ironic, considering the player can just restart the chapter if they think there is an advantage in doing so, levels are almost completely static, and there are few actual hard punishments to prevent the player from progressing if they don't understand a concept. We as players cannot evaluate game design except to determine whether or not the design meets it's own goals. And as you say players typically just turtle up, use tanky units, create formations to protect their weak units, proceed slowly. If that is how players behave, then the design is deeply flawed because it does not meet it's goals.

Just because most people react to ambushes by turtling doesn't make that strategy not adapting. It's simply the easiest way to handle ambushes. More skilled players may just charge ahead and kill the boss quickly, an equally valid way of adapting.

If during playtesting new players are not behaving in the way the designer intends, then the designer must use different design techniques to achieve their goals. The fact that the designers have had to resort to crude and ineffective tactics as to create a "casual mode" is proof that there is a significant dissonance between the goals and the results.

I have many issues with casual, but it has its uses. For someone trying to experience the story, gather supports, or just mess around, it works great. I don't like it being used as a player's main mode, but strategy and tactics games are niche enough as it is.

I absolutely disagree with you on your last point. The player gains nothing by memorizing what is going to happen. That violates the goal of attempting to promote adaptability in the player. It is, as I have said in previous posts, guard rail driving, where you drive straight until you crash into the guard rails, change direction, and repeat until you reach the destination, then think yourself clever for having reached it.

I can agree with you that memorizing what is going to happen sucks some fun out of the game, but the player should not be given such an easy time as to beat every level the first time. In the end this is a game meant to make you think. That will inevitably involve making mistakes and adapting to them. As for your analogy I say it's nonsense. When my four-year-old cousin "plays" Mario Kart she doesn't intend to drive headlong into the rails or off cliffs, even if that is the inevitable end result. She honestly tries to complete the course. Players do not intentionally throw themselves into bad situations except for a challenge.

Adaptability is not in the moment you see the hammer but in the moment when you begin to decide how you are going to respond to it. As I have said over and over again in this thread, there are two stages to cognition, perception and decision making. The first should be transparent and the second should be meaningful.

I don't know about you, but the moment I see a hammer I decide how to respond to it: avoid moving the knights I don't use anyway near it. It may not be so immediate for a newer player, but the response seems rather intuitive. Special weapons are rarely very dangerous and I don't understand your fixation with them. I'm far more concerned about the plentiful archers and wind mages threatening my fliers. Those we can easily identify by sprite.

Some people in this thread have provided examples of how ambush spawns can be used to create a feeling of tension, without saying why ambush spawning as a technique is the most efficient way of accomplishing that goal. In reality, no matter what example you analyze, it is never appropriate to use ambush spawns because other techniques can be just as or more effective at creating the desired experience and they don't disrespect the player by making them replay content they already played through and made no mistakes playing through on account of their lack of previous experience. In the example of ambush spawns Fire Emblem only rewards informed strategies when compared to other mechanics which provide the same experiences and emotions. Such techniques include the thief/chest pattern and the bandit/village pattern, and many others.

I don't like ambush spawns, but the vast majority of them aren't really ambushes. The game warns you multiple turns ahead of their arrival, often adding where they're going to appear. A game should not be perfectly played the first time through anyway, as that discourages replaying the game to improve one's performance.

As for the incessant 1-8 and 3-9 debating, by those points in the game the player is expected to be able to adapt to negative situations. If a player wants to do the level perfectly, expecting the game to allow them to easily do that the first time through is selfish. The first time someone beats a level it should make them feel satisfied for overcoming a challenge, whether they chose to save all of the NPCs or just one.

[Radiant Dragon]

Out of a 60 hour game, how much time is spent flipping through enemy inventories, and is that amount of time both constructive and appropriate? If you break down the experience of flipping through enemy inventories, you realize that only a small fraction of the time is spent theorizing, coming up with a strategy, or making decisions. You want to preserve the time spent coming up with a strategy, after all that is the goal of a strategy game. Those moments where the player stumbles upon a hammer, or a blue gem, and it makes them wonder "how can I deal with this?" That is part of play. The act of flipping itself, next next next next next next... that is not play. Nobody would refresh a blank webpage every second or so for a minute at a time before playing a game. The activity by itself is not fun. It is non-play. If you simply made a simple UI that outlined the important information the player is actually interested in, the player will look at that information and try to form a strategy, they will make decisions, and it cuts back on the amount of time they spend across the entire game doing a task that is not fun.

As you say, the game should promote adaptability in the player. This is ironic, considering the player can just restart the chapter if they think there is an advantage in doing so, levels are almost completely static, and there are few actual hard punishments to prevent the player from progressing if they don't understand a concept. We as players cannot evaluate game design except to determine whether or not the design meets it's own goals. And as you say players typically just turtle up, use tanky units, create formations to protect their weak units, proceed slowly. If that is how players behave, then the design is deeply flawed because it does not meet it's goals.

If during playtesting new players are not behaving in the way the designer intends, then the designer must use different design techniques to achieve their goals. The fact that the designers have had to resort to crude and ineffective tactics as to create a "casual mode" is proof that there is a significant dissonance between the goals and the results.

I absolutely disagree with you on your last point. The player gains nothing by memorizing what is going to happen. That violates the goal of attempting to promote adaptability in the player. It is, as I have said in previous posts, guard rail driving, where you drive straight until you crash into the guard rails, change direction, and repeat until you reach the destination, then think yourself clever for having reached it.

Adaptability is not in the moment you see the hammer but in the moment when you begin to decide how you are going to respond to it. As I have said over and over again in this thread, there are two stages to cognition, perception and decision making. The first should be transparent and the second should be meaningful.

Some people in this thread have provided examples of how ambush spawns can be used to create a feeling of tension, without saying why ambush spawning as a technique is the most efficient way of accomplishing that goal. In reality, no matter what example you analyze, it is never appropriate to use ambush spawns because other techniques can be just as or more effective at creating the desired experience and they don't disrespect the player by making them replay content they already played through and made no mistakes playing through on account of their lack of previous experience. In the example of ambush spawns Fire Emblem only rewards informed strategies when compared to other mechanics which provide the same experiences and emotions. Such techniques include the thief/chest pattern and the bandit/village pattern, and many others.

First of all, let me say that I do agree with you that reducing 'non-play' time and continuing to improve the UI is important. Fire Emblem has made some good strides in that regard already, though. For example, it's significantly quicker to have one of your units attack an enemy in Awakening than it is in say, Blazing Sword. In Awakening, you can select your unit, select the enemy you want to attack, and use the shoulder buttons to cycle through your weapons to see how much damage each would deal. In Blazing Sword, you have to choose the square you want to move to, then use the Attack command, then choose who to attack, then choose a weapon before being able to actually attack. In addition, if you want to compare the damage between weapons, you have to choose a weapon to see how much it'll deal, then go back to the previous menu and choose the next weapon to see how much that'll deal, etc. Checking enemy stats and inventories is much faster in Awakening also. You can simply hover over any enemy to see their stats, skills and inventory (unless you have the 'Simple' UI turned on but why would you do that?), and use the shoulder buttons to quickly cycle between all of the enemies on the map, highlighting the ranges of 'dangerous' enemies (Archer/Snipers, flying units, Counter Warriors, etc.) as you go. Yes, Radiant Dawn's UI wasn't the best (and the GBA titles even worse), but the game is over eight years old at this point, and besides the very next title, Shadow Dragon, had already started implementing many of the improvements I mentioned here.

You say "turtle up, use tanky units, create formations to protect their weak units, proceed slowly" as if it's a bad thing (although I should mention I never said anything about turtling, just that newer players tend to not advance as quickly as more experienced players do). If we were talking in a LTC context then sure, but there's nothing wrong with using tanky units or protecting our healers from enemies. Also, what exactly are we defining IS's 'design goals' as here? Casual mode's 'goal' (as far as I can tell, anyway) is to ease new players into the series and provide a more forgiving experience for the player where a single mistake doesn't have such drastic consequences. And it seems to be doing an excellent job at that also, so I'm not sure why you consider it to be 'crude and inefficient'. Unless you're trying to argue that Casual mode was created solely as IS's way of making ambush spawns and effective weaponry less frustrating for the player, which it does do, but I see this as more of a side effect of the mode's primary benefits as there are plenty of other ways to accidentally get your units killed.

I never said that ambush spawns were the most efficient way to promote adaptability, I simply said that they do. As I said in my previous post, the way to adapt to ambush spawns are to realize where they come from (forts and staircases, in the majority of circumstances), and to react accordingly when the plot tells you that reinforcements are coming soon. Sure, you can just keep resetting each time an ambush spawn kills one of your units instead of actually protecting your units, but this can hardly be considered the most efficient way (real-time wise) to beat any given map.

Edited August 28, 2015 by Radiant Dragon

[Baldrick]

And as you say players typically just turtle up, use tanky units, create formations to protect their weak units, proceed slowly. If that is how players behave, then the design is deeply flawed because it does not meet it's goals.

What are the goals of a Fire Emblem game, from the point of view of the developers, and why does inexperienced or blind players playing conservatively mean these goals are not being met.

other techniques can be just as or more effective at creating the desired experience

Please describe these techniques.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Baldrick

[sithys]

What are the goals of a Fire Emblem game, from the point of view of the developers, and why does inexperienced or blind players playing conservatively mean these goals are not being met.

Please describe these techniques.

Fire Emblem has in the past consistently delivered three core gameplay aesthetics: narrative, abnegation, and challenge. Most of the design decisions support these core gameplay aesthetics and though I have never met the developers it is not a longshot to conclude that these are the primary goals of the developer. Furthermore, the game is discrete and it is played against an AI opponent. Real wars are continuous and fought against a human opponent. Thus the game must be classified as a very abstract simulation which is intended to simulate the decision-making required of a commander at the very highest level of an army.

There are numerous examples of conflict-generating incentives in various fire emblem games that don't involve ambush spawns. If you include games outside of Fire Emblem, then the list becomes immense. In the case where the mechanic is introduced in another genre, I will not include it if the projection of that mechanic into the Fire Emblem gameplay space would be similar to ambush spawns.

Triangularity (balanced asymmetric risk) can be found in a number of games, and it typically involves some reward which is balanced with an increased risk. In Fire Emblem, this manifests itself in the form of chests which can be pilfered by enemy thieves and villages which can be destroyed by enemy bandits. It is well-understood by the scientific community that humans respond to the promise of reward more than they respond to the threat of punishment. Thus any game mechanic which rewards the player is objectively better at creating effective incentives when compared to any game mechanic which punishes the player.

World of Warcraft had a dungeon named Ulduar which is generally accepted (even by the developers) to be the best content ever created for the game. The pattern used in that dungeon was quickly abandoned because it was too difficult and expensive to develop. In Ulduar, there was no difficulty setting. Everyone played the exact same content. However, skilled players could through the mechanics of the bosses unlock "hard mode." For example, there was a boss named Freya who was significantly harder to beat if you didn't kill the three mini-bosses that were in the same room with her. That solution, in which the difficulty of the encounters was directly controlled through the mechanics of the game (a opposed to an option in the UI), is well-accepted to be the optimal solution to difficulty by the player base and even the designers.

The transparency of the mechanic in this case comes from the fact that it is an online game and everyone knows everything about the game at all times because of the internet and resource websites, and the designers design the game knowing this. In later expansions, new UI elements were added to describe boss fights without the need for interaction with a third party.

In Starcraft II there is a level where the player must stay just ahead of a slowly-moving wall of fire. There are numerous examples of other mechanics in the same game which are time-bound, and thus the player is incentivized to keep moving. This is almost similar to ambush spawns when projected into turn-based space, the difference is you can see the wall of fire clearly whereas the game only gives you a very, very vague warning that there is going to be a spawn at some indeterminate time in the future.

I will continue to ponder your question and edit this post as I think of more.

[Radiant Dragon]

When you list abnegation as one of FE's core aesthetics, and separately from narrative, what exactly are you referring to? I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, I just don't see the connection is all.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Radiant Dragon

[sithys]

When you list abnegation as one of FE's core aesthetics, and separately from narrative, what exactly are you referring to? I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, I just don't see the connection is all.

Yes it is a word that is not often used in normal conversation. Abnegation literally means self-denial or renouncing something, though in this context the "self-denial" is the literal denial of the existence of reality and the self, more importantly, the acceptance of a system which is not real or the self. Abnegation is pastime, like stamp collecting or baseball card collecting. Abnegation is mentioned by Extra Credits as an alternative word to "Submission" which was the original word used in MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research. All RPGs give abnegation through their XP and progression systems.

[dondon151]

what the hell is this babble

that's not what abnegation means

you just made up a definition for it