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Lionel Richie · Jul 20, 2017

Trojita said:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameplayAndStorySegregation

Seems to fit?

Not at all, the problems in your example are all in the story. There isn't a disconnect between the gameplay and the story, it's just a part of the story not being exactly logical. Your example would fit if the story told you that the battle was important if you won by a landslide and then you barely won and the story portraits it as a dominating triumph. That's not a great example, but it's closer to something like that, if the game you play is trying to convey a message but the story in it paints something else. Your example is more about the story being shit.

firelogic · Jul 20, 2017

Uncharted gets a lot of flak but how would you fix it? I'm not being facetious or combative here, I'm genuinely curious as to how you'd go about eliminating or minimizing LND.

1. Have Nate go pacifist and not kill anyone?
2. Change Nate's character so he's not a lovable rogue but a hate filled psychopath?
3. Have Nate wrestle with the idea of killing before every confrontation?
4. Have Nate be guilt-ridden/low health/low stamina/forced reluctance to engage in combat after a gun battle?
5. Turn Uncharted into a dream/simulation scenario?
6. Make all the enemies bloodthirsty puppy killers?
7. Make Nate fight robots instead of humans?
8. Eliminate combat altogether and just have Nate walking and climbing while conversing with companions for 10 hours?

All of those things makes the game sound incredibly unfun.

firehawk12 · Jul 20, 2017

firelogic said:
Uncharted gets a lot of flak but how would you fix it? I'm not being facetious or combative here, I'm genuinely curious as to how you'd go about eliminating or minimizing LND.

1. Have Nate go pacifist and not kill anyone?
2. Change Nate's character so he's not a lovable rogue but a hate filled psychopath?
3. Have Nate wrestle with the idea of killing before every confrontation?
4. Have Nate be guilt-ridden/low health/low stamina/forced reluctance to engage in combat after a gun battle?
5. Turn Uncharted into a dream/simulation scenario?
6. Make all the enemies bloodthirsty puppy killers?
7. Make Nate fight robots instead of humans?
8. Eliminate combat altogether and just have Nate walking and climbing while conversing with companions for 10 hours?

All of those things makes the game sound incredibly unfun.

Don't rely on cutscenes that have nothing to do with the gameplay to tell all of the story?

Lionel Richie · Jul 20, 2017

firelogic said:
Uncharted gets a lot of flak but how would you fix it? I'm not being facetious or combative here, I'm genuinely curious as to how you'd go about eliminating or minimizing LND.

Uncharted doesn't need fixing, it needs people knowing what it is and approaching accordingly. It's not a deep Last of Us experience, it's a mindless romp over beautiful landscapes.

firehawk12 · Jul 20, 2017

Patch13 said:
Basically, a controller based game on a 2d screen could use the same mechanics as a violent game, but switch the metaphors around if the neck-snapping, head-shotting ones were at odds with the story. Of course, as a community, we've grown used to the ultraviolence, and are even averse to toning stuff down, fearing the whiff of censorship. But that's kind of on us -- it's not really the controller's fault

I don't know. I mean I'm old enough to have grown up with the Atari joystick, so at some point we thought that basing a controller off of a piloting mechanism was the best way to control a game. Nintendo slowly moved us toward the trigger model with its various iterations, before Microsoft just ingrained it and made it the default controller style for every single console manufacturer... and a lot of that is due to the fact that the biggest selling games were and still are FPSes.

Lionel Richie said:
Uncharted doesn't need fixing, it needs people knowing what it is and approaching accordingly. It's not a deep Last of Us experience, it's a mindless romp over beautiful landscapes.

It's a Fast and Furious movie that thinks it's as deep as Moonlight.

Lifeline · Jul 20, 2017

Uno Venova said:
I was so glad playing Uncharted and realizing that they never bought into this and changed up their games because of this term. That trophy was hilarious.

Yeah, people who care about this can play games like Gone Home or other games that are all about story and not about fun.

What uncharted 4 needed was more firefights, not less.

Lionel Richie · Jul 20, 2017

firehawk12 said:
It's a Fast and Furious movie that thinks it's as deep as Moonlight.

Based on how crazy jacked Chiron looks in the final third of the movie I would not rule that crossover out lol.

firehawk12 · Jul 20, 2017

Lionel Richie said:
Based on how crazy jacked Chiron looks in the final third of the movie I would not rule that crossover out lol.

For all the plaudits it gets for diversity, they could add him in as the gay member of the team. lol

JCHandsom · Jul 20, 2017

Kalentan said:
On your first point, I'm not saying all works would address it but I fear an opposite backlash. Like the first backlash had this fade away but if enough people start yelling about it, Developers could feel like they need to do it. When they want to, consumers voices can be quite powerful.

On the second point, it would be more limiting because things like tone and story would most likely need to be similar if one would want to avoid this. If someone makes a game that involves lots of killing in a Third Person Shooter, then obviously they will now need to address the killing. This would then lead to many developers addressing this in a similar manner and everything starts to become samey.

This shit happens all the time with other mediums and it isn't a problem.

On the criticism side, do you think Romaticism, New Criticism, Postmodernism, etc. just came fully formed from the minds of literary theorists? Of course not, they were reactions to previous trends, swinging back and forth in a Hegelian dialectic, and they were eventually replaced or altered to fit with changing times. Ludonarrative Dissonance isn't going to replace all other forms of games criticism.

On the creation side, when French New Wave started, was every film ever made afterward up to today a FNW film? No! It's influences spread, were deconstructed and homaged, but eventually other kinds of films were made. Heck, there was never such a monolith of consensus that every film being made at the time was made the same way. Ludonarrative Dissonance is going to affect the way games are made, but not all games for all time.

"I don't like the thing" is an acceptable position, but if you're only reason for not liking it is "No other thing will be made because of the thing!" then you haven't been paying attention.

firehawk12 · Jul 20, 2017

Lifeline said:
Yeah, people who care about this can play games like Gone Home or other games that are all about story and not about fun.

What uncharted 4 needed was more firefights, not less.

Uncharted 4 tried to be a "serious game" or whatever you want to call that genre with the most tedious opening few hours I've ever played in a while. Orphan Drake, family man Drake, underwater Drake. It was all meant to build up a character that is lost the moment you pick up a gun and start stabbing people while hiding in tall grass.

Patch13 · Jul 20, 2017

firelogic said:
Uncharted gets a lot of flak but how would you fix it? I'm not being facetious or combative here, I'm genuinely curious as to how you'd go about eliminating or minimizing LND.

1. Have Nate go pacifist and not kill anyone?
2. Change Nate's character so he's not a lovable rogue but a hate filled psychopath?
3. Have Nate wrestle with the idea of killing before every confrontation?
4. Have Nate be guilt-ridden/low health/low stamina/forced reluctance to engage in combat after a gun battle?
5. Turn Uncharted into a dream/simulation scenario?
6. Make all the enemies bloodthirsty puppy killers?
7. Make Nate fight robots instead of humans?
8. Eliminate combat altogether and just have Nate walking and climbing while conversing with companions for 10 hours?

All of those things makes the game sound incredibly unfun.

This is a solid post. I think that a lot of people take route #2, even in movies. It is a little weird, if you pause to think about it, to have Indiana Jones' hero theme swell just before a guy gets his head pulped by a propeller, for example, but it's not weird for a war boy to call for us to witness him just before he dies, all shiny and chrome.

But I'm not sure that going all grimdark and post apocalyptic, ala Mad Max: Fury Road, is the only way to go.

You can go completely in the opposite direction. Mario Mario is kind of a genocidal maniac, but his war crimes are presented in such an abstract and cartoonish way that not too many people seriously complain about them. But Uncharted doesn't really want to be that abstract, and I don't think that Drake wants to fight robots, either -- that route is always kind of a cop out.

I think that people are still figuring out how to do a swashbucklers in game form. Adventure games were an initial answer, but they have a whole host of flaws of their own. Firewatch experiments with letting a player explore an area in a non violent way, while still maintaining tension and interest, though there is not really any swash and buckle to it.

Real life combat is dangerous, but often not lethal for most of the people involved. There's a lot more suppressing fire, and attempts to convince an enemy to retreat or surrender, than there is straightforward slaughter. I don't know how you express those concepts in a way that moves like Uncharted combat does, though it would be interesting to see someone try.

Basically, I don't know. You pose excellent questions and there aren't easy answers. Regardless, the problem remains: there is a disconnect between the Drake in the cut scenes and the Drake in the game, and I think that it is worthwhile talking about that disconnect, and thinking of ways to do better in future games.

(Edit: there's also the "don't put stories in your games" camp, but I'm not sure that they're right, either -- it is fun to be able to play through a story, and it would be neat to hone our abilities to tell good stories in good games.)

firehawk12 · Jul 20, 2017

Patch13 said:
(Edit: there's also the "don't put stories in your games" camp, but I'm not sure that they're right, either -- it is fun to be able to play through a story, and it would be neat to hone our abilities to tell good stories in good games.)

That's the point of ludonarrative dissonance though. The people who try to shoehorn story into their games are often not successful at it. Uncharted is definitely guilty of that, which is why arguably a hundred million dollar Uncharted movie could end up being a better experience than the games.

Lifeline · Jul 20, 2017

firehawk12 said:
Uncharted 4 tried to be a "serious game" or whatever you want to call that genre with the most tedious opening few hours I've ever played in a while. Orphan Drake, family man Drake, underwater Drake. It was all meant to build up a character that is lost the moment you pick up a gun and start stabbing people while hiding in tall grass.

Again, if you want a family man drake adventure than third person shooters aren't for you.

Most of us that can enjoy both story and gameplay without letting either ruin the other.

JCHandsom · Jul 20, 2017

firehawk12 said:
That's the point of ludonarrative dissonance though. The people who try to shoehorn story into their games are often not successful at it. Uncharted is definitely guilty of that, which is why arguably a hundred million dollar Uncharted movie could end up being a better experience than the games.

Baby's and Bathwater. There is more to gain with keeping Ludonarrative Dissonance and addressing it (or not addressing it, that's also valid) than with getting rid of it.

Lifeline said:
Most of us that can enjoy both story and gameplay without letting either ruin the other.

That's true too, and I don't mean it in a backhanded way. Bioshock may in fact be ludonarratively dissonant, but that doesn't stop it from being a good game. It's just something that furthers discussion/criticism and serves as a source of inspiration for new projects- just look at all the ideas and suggestions people have come up with as evidence of that. It isn't the end all be all of whether a game is good or not anymore than a film having problematic or contradictory themes makes it automatically bad. In some cases it can be the deciding factor, but not always.

Patch13 · Jul 20, 2017

firehawk12 said:
That's the point of ludonarrative dissonance though. The people who try to shoehorn story into their games are often not successful at it. Uncharted is definitely guilty of that, which is why arguably a hundred million dollar Uncharted movie could end up being a better experience than the games.

True. I guess my secret motivation is that I someday want to play an amazing AAA game that is about Robin Hood, and it would be neat if we can come up with a mainstream accessible set of swashbuckling mechanics that don't require him to go around shooting the Sherrif's minions through the eye or whatever.

... though I guess I will always have Thief, which is almost the same thing

firehawk12 · Jul 20, 2017

Lifeline said:
Again, if you want a family man drake adventure than third person shooters aren't for you.

Most of us that can enjoy both story and gameplay without letting either ruin the other.

I don't want family man Drake. But he's forced on me by developers who think they're trying to tell a deep character story when most people just want to kill things. It's the same with the boring walk and talk and auto-platforming sequences that don't really add anything to the game other than "character moments".

People seem to hate RLM nowadays, but I still remember the video they did of UC4's opening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnlDwEZkidI

JCHandsom said:
Baby's and Bathwater. There is more to gain with keeping Ludonarrative Dissonance and addressing it (or not addressing it, that's also valid) than with getting rid of it.

Part of my thesis was on Ludonarrative Dissonance though, so I think it's an important thing to think about.

Patch13 said:
True. I guess my secret motivation is that I someday want to play an amazing AAA game that is about Robin Hood, and it would be neat if we can come up with a mainstream accessible set of swashbuckling mechanics that don't require him to go around shooting the Sherrif's minions through the eye or whatever.

... though I guess I will always have Thief, which is almost the same thing

Yeah, I was going to say we have stealth games, but even then you still need to add in a murder mechanic (otherwise people will get mad when they auto-fail a mission and have to start over).

Look at Mirror's Edge... they made a game that was all about running and they added in bad fighting mechanics to slow you down because people expect fighting in games.

Reebot · Jul 20, 2017

firelogic said:
Uncharted gets a lot of flak but how would you fix it? I'm not being facetious or combative here, I'm genuinely curious as to how you'd go about eliminating or minimizing LND.

1. Have Nate go pacifist and not kill anyone?
2. Change Nate's character so he's not a lovable rogue but a hate filled psychopath?
3. Have Nate wrestle with the idea of killing before every confrontation?
4. Have Nate be guilt-ridden/low health/low stamina/forced reluctance to engage in combat after a gun battle?
5. Turn Uncharted into a dream/simulation scenario?
6. Make all the enemies bloodthirsty puppy killers?
7. Make Nate fight robots instead of humans?
8. Eliminate combat altogether and just have Nate walking and climbing while conversing with companions for 10 hours?

All of those things makes the game sound incredibly unfun.

Much easier fix: make the bad guys bad.

It's not a problem for 1, 2, and 3 becuase the bad guys want to, respectively, kills millions, take over the world, and take over the world.

In 4, the bad guys want money, making them exactly as morally suspect as our heroes.

Maybe even better, as Sam kicks off the whole adventure knowing it will end in bloodshed.

HStallion · Jul 20, 2017

The Last Guardian, technical issues aside, is probably the exact opposite of Ludonarrative dissonance. Everything in that game is geared towards advancing the core experience and themes. It never does anything purposefully to break the immersion or undercut of the experience of the boy and Trico having their thrilling and terrifying adventure. Its basically ludonarrative harmony.

Lo_Fi · Jul 20, 2017

Boombloxer said:
Sure, and if you want that to ultimately lead to better games, you have to ultimately prove that it's worth it.
*And for many, it falls into the "who cares" category.

You can have a mature discussion about multiple things that probably would impact any of the areas mentioned, but this isn't one of them. So it ultimately goes nowhere because of that.

*And for many that already play games, it falls into the "who cares" category.

You're only thinking about people who already play games. The game industry and game players are a bubble. Playtest a game with someone who doesn't usually play games and you will see this in an instant.

I bet you someone who doesn't play games, but might be interested in getting into them, would be able to point out that there's a conflict between story and gameplay in GTA4 extremely quickly. And it'd potentially turn them away from games.

Lionel Richie said:
Uncharted doesn't need fixing, it needs people knowing what it is and approaching accordingly. It's not a deep Last of Us experience, it's a mindless romp over beautiful landscapes.

I would agree. I love the Uncharted games, but at the same time, can recognize that they have ludonarrative dissonance. When I play them I usually just go in with the mindset that it's going to be a campy rollercoaster.

------------------------------------------------

For what it's worth: I think one thing to consider is who criticism is for. If you're a game player, it might seem that criticism is someone imposing their will on designers, and that's it.

But as a game designer, I can look at the problems with Uncharted, accept them, and then potentially think about the criticisms levied against it and make better work myself, while Uncharted stays exactly the same. Analyzing other games is extremely important for game devs.

Ordinaryundone · Jul 20, 2017

TheRedSnifit said:
So the philosophical underpinning of Bioshock is "Objectivism is necessary in a zombie apocalypse"? Seems like a bizarre theme, no?

The reality is that, taken as a whole, Bioshock (which was manufactured by people) works to justify Objectivism. Every element of the gameplay works to rationalize Objectivism even though the game is (nominally) opposed to it, to the point that you can pretty easily argue that it is in favor of radical self-interest. That's the dissonance: A direct thematic clash between the game's narrative and what's actually happening in the game.

I do agree that Hocking's criticism was misplaced, insofar as he acts as though Bioshock is attempting to be a serious, insightful narrative on Objectivism and human nature. And not, you know, a loose rewrite of System Shock 2 that hastily touches on some Big Ideas without ever really talking about them.

Thing is, Jack isn't profiting off rational self interest, any more than the very basic ability to stay alive. At least, in the good ending, where he uses the riches of Rapture to spend his life helping children (not a terribly Randian goal). The "evil" ending is the one where he gives in to the temptation to profit and gain power from the city, and its deliberately labeled as such and requires you to make the arguably one deliberately selfish act in the game of murdering a Little Sister.

If anything Jack is a "parasite" from Ryan/Rand's pov because he arrives in Rapture and simply takes. He doesn't create, he doesn't work (unless killing is work). He just collects and takes from others. The game makes a clear value judgement by deciding that the material value of Rapture, its money and ADAM and stuff, is less than the human value of the Little Sisters and allows you to make that choice to spite the Objectivist creators of Rapture who chose the opposite.

As for you making a larger profit for saving the kids there is no way to know that for sure the first time you play the game, unless you were spoiled. The game hints at it but tells you outright at the start that killing them gets you more so those first few Little Sisters are a deliberate values test.

Also, I'd argue that the fact that Rapture collapsed so completely on its own is the primary argument against Objectivism. You just get the survival horror walking tour and don't get much say beyond if you agree or disagree.

takriel · Jul 20, 2017

firelogic said:
Uncharted gets a lot of flak but how would you fix it? I'm not being facetious or combative here, I'm genuinely curious as to how you'd go about eliminating or minimizing LND.

1. Have Nate go pacifist and not kill anyone?
2. Change Nate's character so he's not a lovable rogue but a hate filled psychopath?
3. Have Nate wrestle with the idea of killing before every confrontation?
4. Have Nate be guilt-ridden/low health/low stamina/forced reluctance to engage in combat after a gun battle?
5. Turn Uncharted into a dream/simulation scenario?
6. Make all the enemies bloodthirsty puppy killers?
7. Make Nate fight robots instead of humans?
8. Eliminate combat altogether and just have Nate walking and climbing while conversing with companions for 10 hours?

All of those things makes the game sound incredibly unfun.

How about don't include shooting scenarios at all? It's not that difficult.

Ordinaryundone · Jul 20, 2017

Reebot said:
Much easier fix: make the bad guys bad.

It's not a problem for 1, 2, and 3 becuase the bad guys want to, respectively, kills millions, take over the world, and take over the world.

In 4, the bad guys want money, making them exactly as morally suspect as our heroes.

Maybe even better, as Sam kicks off the whole adventure knowing it will end in bloodshed.

I mean, that is sort of the point of 4. Sam isn't meant to be an entirely good guy, hence why his motivations are a big reveal and why he lies to you. And the game makes it clear that Drake is in it for selfish reasons as well, though its less for the money and more for the adventure. They even give Drake his big "Hey guys, I learned something today" moment near the end to basically spell out how he and Sam were wrong to the audience.

JCHandsom · Jul 20, 2017

firehawk12 said:
Part of my thesis was on Ludonarrative Dissonance though, so I think it's an important thing to think about.

Wasn't sure based on that your comment at first, my b.

Yeah, I was going to say we have stealth games, but even then you still need to add in a murder mechanic (otherwise people will get mad when they auto-fail a mission and have to start over).

Look at Mirror's Edge... they made a game that was all about running and they added in bad fighting mechanics to slow you down because people expect fighting in games.

It doesn't necessarily require a jump to murder; you could have a smoke bomb that gets you out of immediate danger. These smoke bombs could be a limited supply and be essentially your "health" for getting spotted. That's just one potential solution for it too.

You're right though that the expectation is for lethal combat in most games, and that's something that can change with the introduction of new schools of design and criticism.

Dantis · Jul 20, 2017

takriel said:
How about don't include shooting scenarios at all? It's not that difficult.

Resulting in the game selling significantly less copies. Which then means the game also becomes lower budget as a side effect of that, and the absurdly expensive game that is Uncharted 4 doesn't exist.

Lionel Richie · Jul 20, 2017

Lo_Fi said:
I would agree. I love the Uncharted games, but at the same time, can recognize that they have ludonarrative dissonance. When I play them I usually just go in with the mindset that it's going to be a campy rollercoaster.

I really don't think it does, the moment to moment gameplay doesn't contradict the story when you consider the action movie genre past examples. Maybe 4 ironically comes really close, but I think it's more about a different creative team forcing some ideas that do not fit the game's universe so perfectly. That was a really uneven game (that I still liked but it was a bit of a letdown IMO).

saturnine · Jul 20, 2017

I wonder, what about the Yakuza series? These games can arguably juggle between completely different tones, from extremely violent fights and serious drama to zany sidequests and goofy minigames, and yet I don't feel they suffer much from dissonance.

They keep establishing and reinforcing that Kiryu has a strict no-kill rule, stretching the believability of his actions really thin, but is it all it takes to defuse the dissonance?

Boombloxer · Jul 20, 2017

Lo_Fi said:
*And for many that already play games, it falls into the "who cares" category.

You're only thinking about people who already play games. The game industry and game players are a bubble. Playtest a game with someone who doesn't usually play games and you will see this in an instant.

I bet you someone who doesn't play games, but might be interested in getting into them, would be able to point out that there's a conflict between story and gameplay in GTA4 extremely quickly. And it'd potentially turn them away from games.

Actually, the play testing you mention reveals exactly what I'm saying. They don't care.

Players new to the medium usually involve themselves in the art, then get the general jist if the story and then dive into the basic raw mechanics. Most of the notes were about say, the quips made during combat, how do I swap weapons, etc. They were not saying "man, this guy seems so cool, but why is he killing all these guys? It turns me off." It simply is not a big deal to the average player, or even new folks.

Part of this is actually attributed to some mobile games which put the emphasis on gameplay and not scripted story. There simply is no connection made to form part of that base. And part of this is because you have plenty of films where the dude is quite Zen about being a hitman/treasure hunter/spy/action hero as he kills folks by the dozens.

For GTA V, same thing. Nearly no one actually thinks about that from potential players; they're having too much fun jacking cars. And this is with 70M copies sold.

In other words, niche discussion is niche. And theres nothing wrong with that. But if there's an expectation of that leading to a marked change for even 15% of produced games, well, it isn't on the horizon.

Edit:

that's something that can change with the introduction of new schools of design and criticism.

No, that criticism still has to result in a product which actually sells. If you have a game that needs those needs and sells 100k copies, you're not seeing another one.

For instance, Spec Ops:The Line.

Fuchsdh · Jul 20, 2017

I've always thought that while I agree with the term's validity, the argument for how it applies to BioShock simply doesn't work. The whole game is ultimately constructed around the question of whether you have a choice, and the game uses the limitations of the medium itself (no, you can't do anything and everything even in sandbox games) and turns it into a strength. The other example always kicked around, Uncharted 2, makes far more sense.

Applying the same criticism to BioShock Infinite makes far more sense (where your looting, gun-toting protagonist makes far less sense in the shining albeit racist world of Columbia than in the post-apocalyptic Rapture, and the game makes a point to talk about the horrifying parts of violence but has first-person executions that revel in it.)

firelogic said:
Uncharted gets a lot of flak but how would you fix it? I'm not being facetious or combative here, I'm genuinely curious as to how you'd go about eliminating or minimizing LND.

1. Have Nate go pacifist and not kill anyone?
2. Change Nate's character so he's not a lovable rogue but a hate filled psychopath?
3. Have Nate wrestle with the idea of killing before every confrontation?
4. Have Nate be guilt-ridden/low health/low stamina/forced reluctance to engage in combat after a gun battle?
5. Turn Uncharted into a dream/simulation scenario?
6. Make all the enemies bloodthirsty puppy killers?
7. Make Nate fight robots instead of humans?
8. Eliminate combat altogether and just have Nate walking and climbing while conversing with companions for 10 hours?

All of those things makes the game sound incredibly unfun.

Reducing the number of goons the game throws at you in favor of the puzzle and platforming aspect and cutting down on cinematics (the only place where people treat guns as lethal) would greatly help.

The game itself is heavily based on Indiana Jones, but despite killing people in the movie (or dealing damage that would in the real world kill someone) Jones racks up nowhere near the kill count.

Budi · Jul 20, 2017

firehawk12 said:
People seem to hate RLM nowadays, but I still remember the video they did of UC4's opening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnlDwEZkidI

Sharing this definitely wont make people here hate them less =D Thanks for sharing though, I haven't seen it yet.

Zakalwe · Jul 20, 2017

The dismissal pf the term was always anti-intellectual, it was ridiculed with meme level responses as soon as it caught the slightest momentum as a potential widely used term.

It came across as either people pointing at the "pretentious" sounding words (pretentious seemingly being one of the most often misused words of all time...) without really thinking/to get a quick laugh, or people not being able to grasp it, or not wanting to bother, or simply dismissing this level of intellectual scrutiny of video games.

Holistic criticism is important, obviously, and the term identifies something that exists and identifies it without ambiguity. The words sound intellectual because they are part of an intellectual process. It's never going to be a term that gains widespread traction because most people don't put this much thought into their critiques for whatever reason.

However, it should be a term we feel fine using here and anyone mocking it should probably be ignored (unless their joke/witty quip is particularly great, of course).

Also I agree that UC definitely has elements of LD in its presentation, and while it may not be a prime example Druckman's response definitely comes across as dismissive and slightly arrogant. UC4 was much better in this regard, but the previous games had enough elements of disconnect for me that it was something I thought of independently before I'd even heard the term.

I think every game will have LD to an extent, though, so I understand his position when UC's LD really isn't any more pronounced than your average game yet it has been highlighted more than others that are more guilty.

JCHandsom · Jul 20, 2017

Boombloxer said:
No, that criticism still has to result in a product which actually sells. If you have a game that needs those needs and sells 100k copies, you're not seeing another one.

For instance, Spec Ops:The Line.

20 years ago no one would have guess superhero movies would be a billion dollar industry. 50 years ago no one would have guessed a Flash Gordon pastiche would reinvent Hollywood.
100 years ago no one could have known that Cinema would produce works of art rivaling the greatest books ever written and plays ever performed.

Games as we know them are not even 50 years old. Paradigms change.

boiled goose · Jul 20, 2017

TheRedSnifit said:
Excellent video.

Ludonarrative dissonance is a perfectly valid criticism, and it pains me when I see people in these threads handwave it away as being irrelevant because "it's a game."

Yup. Saw it yesterday and it's on point.

Biggest and most valid critique of naughty dog games

Plum · Jul 20, 2017

Boombloxer said:
Nope. Its a very small, vocal subset that thinks it's a problem and an even smaller subset that won't a buy a game because of it. The vast majority don't care.

And I'm one of them. It's an interesting topic that ultimately goes nowhere, and a lot of that is because many people view it as a silly argument that has no impact on sales, acclaim or longevity. And until that changes, that's where it will stay.

Here's some suggestions:

1) Make the enemy's plans clear from the get go instead of obfuscating them until hours in
2) Adding to that, make it so that the enemy does not need Nathan's help to accomplish their goals
3) Don't leave out supernatural enemies until the end and don't ignore them; this should be done anyway because fuck is enemy variety lacking in UC games
4) Don't have Nate, Sully, whoever quipping constantly during combat and chase sequences
5) Make the non-combat sections more engaging; UC4 tried this but ultimately failed
6) Be a bit more discerning with who the characters are fighting
7) Reduce the enemy count overall by implementing more diverse and varied combat encounters
8) Minimize the involvement of random innocent civilians and the destruction of ancient priceless artefacts; Nate cracking wise after he just ran over a bunch of people's livelihoods in UC4
9) Don't do an Indiana Jones 4 in Uncharted 4 by having the main character suddenly be a family man
10) Uncharted 4 spoilers:

Don't give a happy ending to the guy who coerced Nate into killing hundreds, causing thousands if not millions in property damage and endangering himself, Elena and Sully

What people seem to misunderstand with the Uncharted argument is that it's not just because Nathan shoots a bunch of people, it's because the game tries to have its cake and eat it too. The Nathan Drake presented to us in cutscenes is dissonant to the one we play as in gameplay, and there are many things that can be done in both areas which could mitigate that whilst still making the overall experience fun to play.

Boombloxer said:
In other words, niche discussion is niche. And theres nothing wrong with that. But if there's an expectation of that leading to a marked change for even 15% of produced games, well, it isn't on the horizon.
.

We know it's niche so why point it out if not because you want to stifle discussion?

Zakalwe · Jul 20, 2017

saturnine said:
I wonder, what about the Yakuza series? These games can arguably juggle between completely different tones, from extremely violent fights and serious drama to zany sidequests and goofy minigames, and yet I don't feel they suffer much from dissonance.

They keep establishing and reinforcing that Kiryu has a strict no-kill rule, stretching the believability of his actions really thin, but is it all it takes to defuse the dissonance?

Yakuza is a strange one, but I don't think it had much LD, for me at least.

The game defines it self as this genre spanning/meshing/fucking creature that swings from mind spinning absurdity to actual pathos, and somehow it expertly bridges these things.

Perhaps because it sets its rules up and sticks to them so well?

Patch13 · Jul 20, 2017

firehawk12 said:
Look at Mirror's Edge... they made a game that was all about running and they added in bad fighting mechanics to slow you down because people expect fighting in games.

Mirror's Edge makes me sad. I enjoyed what I played, but I never did finish it, because I couldn't bring myself to shoot people as Faith, but there were some sequences that were annoyingly difficult if you refused to pick up a gun ...

Ordinaryundone · Jul 20, 2017

saturnine said:
I wonder, what about the Yakuza series? These games can arguably juggle between completely different tones, from extremely violent fights and serious drama to zany sidequests and goofy minigames, and yet I don't feel they suffer much from dissonance.

They keep establishing and reinforcing that Kiryu has a strict no-kill rule, stretching the believability of his actions really thin, but is it all it takes to defuse the dissonance?

Yakuza wears it's dissonance entirely on its sleeve, it's fully aware of the disconnect in a world where guns can go from realistically lethal in cutscenes to absurdly weak in gameplay and it basically offers the player the choice of either ignoring and accepting it as a storytelling and gameplay contrivance or enjoying the humor of acknowledging the dissonance as simply part of the world Yakuza takes place in. They never explain how HEAT works either; its never mentioned in the cutscenes but its a real thing that pretty much everyone important uses at some point. The devs are basically saying " You just have to accept that everyone in Yakuza just randomly gains super powers at times and yes that is canon".

Japanese philosophy seems to move towards embracing LD for humor or aesthetic reasons and honestly, I've always appreciated that.

Bergerac · Jul 20, 2017

Uncharted is a pulp romp. Why is this always forgotten? It is not the same universe as our contemporary morality.

Case in point, TLOU is intended to be a lot closer to realistic morals, because its influences do not lie in pulp. As a result, Joel is generally unlikeable if somewhat sympathetic. Entirely different to Drake.

They were both made by the same people.

Ergo, they are more than aware that Drake is offing people left, right and centre and they always were. It's the entire character of that type of adventure.

Arnold Schwarzenneger films aren't exactly 'moral' either. They are what they are.

RDR is set in the dying days of the Wild West. The law may have existed, but personal morals of killing were not the same. What kind of argument bases itself on today's standards?

When they come out and say that Uncharted is meant to be a grounded series, then you can make complaints of dissonance.

This entire discussion centres around a willful ignorance of the genre, and quite frankly blanket 'ludonarrative dissonance' claims can be applied to Mario all the same. He kills scores of enemies that as far as we're aware, aren't even acting with 'intent', if you want to be fucking pedantic. How sympathetic and respectful of life is Samus Aran, the amount of benign animals she kills? You can logically spend months applying this to every game. This isn't just a buzzword, Uncharted being the repeated target is a flat out buzztopic, that for all of its supposed rumination, bears little critical thinking.

It's a pulp romp. Heroes kill people in pulp romps and then act charming. It's decades old storytelling that just happens to be in a modern game. One of the beauties of this medium and others, is that you can tell stories that are not necessarily reflective of modern reality.

It's not difficult.

Plum · Jul 20, 2017

Ordinaryundone said:
I mean, that is sort of the point of 4. Sam isn't meant to be an entirely good guy, hence why his motivations are a big reveal and why he lies to you. And the game makes it clear that Drake is in it for selfish reasons as well, though its less for the money and more for the adventure. They even give Drake his big "Hey guys, I learned something today" moment near the end to basically spell out how he and Sam were wrong to the audience.

The thing is

Sam getting a happy ending is nowhere near what his character deserved in terms of story. It's the most ludonarratively dissonant part of the whole franchise for me after thinking; Sam's the person who single-handedly caused pretty much the entirety of UC4's conflict yet he never gets his comeuppance. He's not a misguided guy who made a mistake, he's a villain, yet he's sitting happy at the end sipping whiskey with Sully. It would have made the story so much better if he'd have died in the burning ship at the end because, ultimately, both him and Raif (if that's how you spell it) are the same; one's just richer and a bit more overtly asshole-ish than the other.

Bergerac said:
Uncharted is a pulp romp. Why is this always forgotten? It is not the same universe as our contemporary morality.

Case in point, TLOU is intended to be a lot closer to realistic morals, because its influences do not lie in pulp. As a result, Joel is generally unlikeable if somewhat sympathetic. Entirely different to Drake.

They were both made by the same people.

Ergo, they are more than aware that Drake is offing people left, right and centre and they always were. It's the entire character of that type of adventure.

Arnold Schwarzenneger films aren't exactly 'moral' either. They are what they are.

RDR is set in the dying days of the Wild West. The law may have existed, but personal morals of killing were not the same. What kind of argument bases itself on today's standards?

When they come out and say that Uncharted is meant to be a grounded series, then you can make complaints of dissonance.

This entire discussion centres around a willful ignorance of the genre, and quite frankly blanket 'ludonarrative dissonance' claims can be applied to Mario all the same. He kills scores of enemies that as far as we're aware, aren't even acting with 'intent', if you want to be fucking pedantic. How sympathetic and respectful of life is Samus Aran, the amount of benign animals she kills? You can logically spend months applying this to every game. This isn't just a buzzword, Uncharted being the repeated target is a flat out buzztopic, that for all of its supposed rumination, bears little critical thinking.

It's a pulp romp. Heroes kill people in pulp romps and then act charming. It's decades old storytelling that just happens to be in a modern game. One of the beauties of this medium and others, is that you can tell stories that are not necessarily reflective of modern reality.

It's not difficult.

Again, the "but it's pulp!" dismissal does not work. Just because Naughty Dog went in with the intention of making a pulpy action flick-turned-game does not mean they succeeded. What everyone forgets is that The Crystal Skull took flak because it did the exact same things many Uncharted games do, you didn't see people critiquing the dehumanising portrayal of communists deflected because "It's just pulpy adventure!"

But since you went on to go the whole "But what about Mario" and "criticising Uncharted is just for people who can't think critically!" I won't go on any further. It's clear you're more interested in deflecting criticism than anything else.

EDIT: It's funny you bring up Metroid because Other M was almost universally given crap for what can only be called ludonarrative dissonance.

Ordinaryundone · Jul 20, 2017

Plum said:
The thing is

Sam getting a happy ending is nowhere near what his character deserved in terms of story. It's the most ludonarratively dissonant part of the whole franchise for me after thinking; Sam's the person who single-handedly caused pretty much the entirety of UC4's conflict yet he never gets his comeuppance. He's not a misguided guy who made a mistake, he's a villain, yet he's sitting happy at the end sipping whiskey with Sully. It would have made the story so much better if he'd have died in the burning ship at the end because, ultimately, both him and Raif (if that's how you spell it) are the same; one's just richer and a bit more overtly asshole-ish than the other.

Possibly in a more realistic story, or one concerned with being a morality lesson, but Uncharted is in the style of an adventure serial. Which means if you aren't firmly on "Team Bad Guy" you stand a good chance of making it out ok even if you are in a grey area. Plus while Sam arguably deserved an unhappy ending I don't think Drake did, and killing his brother off after so many years of separation just feels...I dunno, mean spirited. More in the style of The Last of Us than Uncharted. Adventure simply doesn't have the same cost or gravity in their world than it does in ours, even if that seems hard to parse.

Also I wouldn't really lump Sam and Rafe together. Rafe was clearly a violent psychopath who was fine with hiring private armies and killing his own people to get what he wanted. Sam is morally dubious but he has the "rough life" excuse (orphanage, prison, etc.) and is still more clearly motivated by the desire for adventure than the greed. Getting the treasure wasn't about the money for him, it was about fulfilling a lifelong dream. Which is why he hands over what little he did manage to snag to Elena. Rafe just wanted to be famous, even if at the expense of others. It's worth noting Sam was fine with just him and Nate and likely no one would have died if Rafe hadn't engaged them. Rafe on the other hand hired mercenaries who were famous for excessive brutality.

Zakalwe · Jul 20, 2017

Ordinaryundone said:
Yakuza wears it's dissonance entirely on its sleeve, it's fully aware of the disconnect in a world where guns can go from realistically lethal in cutscenes to absurdly weak in gameplay and it basically offers the player the choice of either ignoring and accepting it as a storytelling and gameplay contrivance or enjoying the humor of acknowledging the dissonance as simply part of the world Yakuza takes place in. They never explain how HEAT works either; its never mentioned in the cutscenes but its a real thing that pretty much everyone important uses at some point. The devs are basically saying " You just have to accept that everyone in Yakuza just randomly gains super powers at times and yes that is canon".

Japanese philosophy seems to move towards embracing LD for humor or aesthetic reasons and honestly, I've always appreciated that.

Yep, this I agree with actually.

Yakuza works because the LD is celebrated. It helps that the emotional stuff is also mostly very well written.

Alienous · Jul 20, 2017

firelogic said:
Uncharted gets a lot of flak but how would you fix it? I'm not being facetious or combative here, I'm genuinely curious as to how you'd go about eliminating or minimizing LND.

1. Have Nate go pacifist and not kill anyone?
2. Change Nate's character so he's not a lovable rogue but a hate filled psychopath?
3. Have Nate wrestle with the idea of killing before every confrontation?
4. Have Nate be guilt-ridden/low health/low stamina/forced reluctance to engage in combat after a gun battle?
5. Turn Uncharted into a dream/simulation scenario?
6. Make all the enemies bloodthirsty puppy killers?
7. Make Nate fight robots instead of humans?
8. Eliminate combat altogether and just have Nate walking and climbing while conversing with companions for 10 hours?

All of those things makes the game sound incredibly unfun.

Uncharted wrote itself into a corner by stretching the amount of violence an everyman would be capable of. So maybe they'd just have to accept the ludonarrative dissonance as the cost of trying to have their cake and eat it too.

It isn't easy, but writing for video games shouldn't be. You should have to struggle with finding harmony between the interactive and non-interactive parts of the game. So maybe that means Nathan Drake shouldn't be as happy-go-lucky, or that the game should search for gameplay more befitting of the character.

Or they don't do either, which is fine. But people going 'wait, those socks don't match' is fine too. It doesn't make it a bad game.

Famassu · Jul 20, 2017

Plum said:
Again, the "but it's pulp!" dismissal does not work. Just because Naughty Dog went in with the intention of making a pulpy action flick-turned-game does not mean they succeeded. What everyone forgets is that The Crystal Skull took flak because it did the exact same things many Uncharted games do, you didn't see people critiquing the dehumanising portrayal of communists deflected because "It's just pulpy adventure!"

But since you went on to go the whole "But what about Mario" and "criticising Uncharted is just for people who can't think critically!" I won't go on any further. It's clear you're more interested in deflecting criticism than anything else.

EDIT: It's funny you bring up Metroid because Other M was almost universally given crap for what can only be called ludonarrative dissonance.

Of course it works, because that's exactly what they are and they do succeed in it very well, considering how much people enjoy these games and most people aren't bogged down by moral dilemmas of having to kill so many people. Again, there's an argument to be had of whether games rely too much on violence or not (much like violence in movies is a bit too prelevent) and that is certainly something Uncharted is guilty of, but ludonarrative dissonance doesn't really apply all that well to Uncharted.

And Indiana Jones has it's own quippy "haha, isn't murder entertaining!" moment(s). And I'm not talking about Indy 4.

Other M was given a lot of shit but that was for things other than what you are arguing about. Older Metroids don't really justify going around extincting a whole planet's populace of different kinds of animals but it's a game and the animals (mostly) look mean/disgusting so no one gives a shit when you smatter their brains onto the walls of caves & buildings. The henchmen in Uncharted are no more meaningful. They are bad guys who are out to shoot & kill you on sight.

jayu26 · Jul 20, 2017

gfxtwin said:
It definitely applies to Uncharted. Killing ten nazis is comparable to killing 700 pirates from impoverished areas of the world? LMAO. And there is often a very thin line between Drake and the people you shoot in the game that begins and ends at "but they shot first".

Indie doesn't just kill Nazis. His most famous cold blooded murder (the sword guy in the market) wasn't even a Nazis.

boiled goose said:
Yup. Saw it yesterday and it's on point.

Biggest and most valid critique of naughty dog games

Naughty Dog games? So you are lumping Last of Us into this as well?

Lo_Fi · Jul 20, 2017

Boombloxer said:
Actually, the play testing you mention reveals exactly what I'm saying. They don't care.

Players new to the medium usually involve themselves in the art, then get the general jist if the story and then dive into the basic raw mechanics. Most of the notes were about say, the quips made during combat, how do I swap weapons, etc. They were not saying "man, this guy seems so cool, but why is he killing all these guys? It turns me off." It simply is not a big deal to the average player, or even new folks.

What playtesting are you referring to? Playtesting you've personally done with people that don't usually play games, or playtesting you've heard about Naughty Dog doing? Or something else?

Lunar15 · Jul 20, 2017

The only times I bring up ludo-narrative dissonance is when the game is consciously trying to have a narrative and the gameplay is working against said narrative.

Bioshock Infinite - the game that put this term on the map - is a really key example of this, because the game clearly has themes it wants to impart, but the gameplay feels so separate from it.

thesonovabeach · Jul 20, 2017

Jangowuzhere said:
John Marston is a man trying to break away from his violent criminal past and start a peaceful life with his faimily. And yet, the player has the freedom to basically break this narrative by shooting random innocent people, robbing banks, and get into constant shootouts with the law. This would be believable if the game had multiple paths in the story, but no, the game sticks to a simple solid narrative about Redemption and nothing else.

Well I think it's a great way to deal with the problem actually.

You only care about "fun" and want to put a random man tied on the rails to watch him blow up when the train passes ? Go ahead.
Want to role-play as John and play cards, say hello to people you meet and only kill dudes when other people force you to in missions (well kinda) ? Doable too.

Uncharted is WAY WORSE i believe. It makes this cinematically funny guy that would be the comic relief in an action movie kill hundred of people, sometimes in horrific ways, sometimes by breaking their neck without them even noticing him during gameplay. And this only because developpers can't seem to find any other challenges in games than shooting guys.

JonnyDBrit · Jul 20, 2017

Ordinaryundone said:
Yakuza wears it's dissonance entirely on its sleeve, it's fully aware of the disconnect in a world where guns can go from realistically lethal in cutscenes to absurdly weak in gameplay and it basically offers the player the choice of either ignoring and accepting it as a storytelling and gameplay contrivance or enjoying the humor of acknowledging the dissonance as simply part of the world Yakuza takes place in. They never explain how HEAT works either; its never mentioned in the cutscenes but its a real thing that pretty much everyone important uses at some point. The devs are basically saying " You just have to accept that everyone in Yakuza just randomly gains super powers at times and yes that is canon".

Japanese philosophy seems to move towards embracing LD for humor or aesthetic reasons and honestly, I've always appreciated that.

The thing in that regard is such dissonance can serve to amplify the larger than life feel of a work. Visual comedy often relies on such dissonance, contrasting what the setup suggests should happen, against what actually proceeds to happen. Video games like can add an additional layer with what you expect to occur based on established imagery and setting, vs what actually happens when you press the button. Why yes, you just kicked that guy through a window. Dodged an rpg. Answered the phone in the most dramatic fashion possible.

It's not necessarily a thing to avoid, just understand.

Famassu · Jul 20, 2017

Branduil said:
The difference between Uncharted and Indiana Jones/Star Wars is that in the latter they're killing literal Nazis, not brown people with the same fundamental motivation as the white hero(profit).

The bad guys in 1, 2 and 3 would release some pretty nasty shit to the world. And they have no problems causing deliberate mass destruction to civilians' homes. 4's main villains are a bit more on the grey side of things, but most of the the enemies are still ruthless killers who get paid to kill. Nathan & Co only kill because otherwise they'd be killed by people who chase them/block their way with the intent of killing them.

Plum · Jul 20, 2017

Ordinaryundone said:
Possibly in a more realistic story, or one concerned with being a morality lesson, but Uncharted is in the style of an adventure serial. Which means if you aren't firmly on "Team Bad Guy" you stand a good chance of making it out ok even if you are in a grey area. Plus while Sam arguably deserved an unhappy ending I don't think Drake did, and killing his brother off after so many years of separation just feels...I dunno, mean spirited. More in the style of The Last of Us than Uncharted. Adventure simply doesn't have the same cost or gravity in their world than it does in ours, even if that seems hard to parse.

Also I wouldn't really lump Sam and Rafe together. Rafe was clearly a violent psychopath who was fine with hiring private armies and killing his own people to get what he wanted. Sam is morally dubious but he has the "rough life" excuse (orphanage, prison, etc.) and is still more clearly motivated by the desire for adventure than the greed. Getting the treasure wasn't about the money for him, it was about fulfilling a lifelong dream. Which is why he hands over what little he did manage to snag to Elena. Rafe just wanted to be famous, even if at the expense of others. It's worth noting Sam was fine with just him and Nate and likely no one would have died if Rafe hadn't engaged them. Rafe on the other hand hired mercenaries who were famous for excessive brutality.

I'd disagree that, with Uncharted being an adventure serial, it shouldn't concern itself with morality.

In fact I think the opposite; having a selfish character live to tell the tale entirely scot free is something you'd see in Game of Thrones or a Tarantino film, not Indiana Jones. There was a recent thread in Off Topic about needlessly cruel endings for characters in film, well this is the opposite to me; Sam gets a needlessly happy ending despite him being such a scumbag throughout. He's the one who chose to go straight into adventuring instead of reuniting with his brother and settling down.

As for

him and Rafe. Yeah, of course Rafe is the worst one there and he deserved the fate he got. They're not exactly the same, I'll give you that. However, since we're talking about character endings here, I'll go through what I've found to be the three endings a character can get in a pulpy adventure story:
1) Unredeemed Death/Exit: A character is despicable until the very end (The Emperor,
Voldemort, Rafe)
2) Redemmed Death/Exit: A character pays for their mistakes in life but is redeemed by ultimately doing the right thing (Darth Vader)
3) Happy Ending: Self-explanatory
I see Sam as fitting squarely into the second category. He's an asshole who does things for selfish reasons that are slightly sympathetic but, ultimately, make him an asshole.
Yet instead he gets the same ending as everyone else; morally he's nowhere near the level of Nate or Elena and he does so little in the story to turn that around. Again,
it's a pulpy adventure so morality should be adhered to instead of ignored; I see Sam chilling with Sully at the end in the same way I'd see Darth Vader/Anakin chilling with Luke and the Ewoks at the end of Jedi.

More_Badass · Jul 20, 2017

Bergerac said:
Uncharted is a pulp romp. Why is this always forgotten? It is not the same universe as our contemporary morality..

I think that's kind of a cop-out. Uncharted is certainly inspired by pulp stuff and Indiana Jones, but it's also inspired by the everyman heroes like John McClane. It wants to have its cake and eat it to. The pulpy adventure and the relatable hero who's in over his head. The pulpy hero can take on waves of bad guys like it's no big deal, but the everyman hero's appeal comes from the fact that he can't. There's a reason why the Die Hards went downhill when they shifted from McClane struggling against a small group of enemies to being an unstoppable action hero taking on impossible odds. Or why Indy barely making it through brawls and struggling to take down a convoy feels right while his jungle antics don't, given what we known of the character

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